ALIM OZTURK admits it wasn’t nice to have Celtic celebrate the title at Tynecastle on Saturday – but hoped Hearts could run them closer next season. Celtic’s 3-1 win saw them all but crowned champions for a fifth successive season after poor Hearts defending allowed them to score twice in the second half. That frustrated Ozturk but the Turk expressed his satisfaction with Hearts’ third-place finish in their first season back in the Premiership and hoped it would provide a platform to build on next year.
“Of course it is not nice to see another team claim a title at your ground,” he said. “We didn’t want them to win it here but it happened. Everyone is disappointed. The difference was not that big between Celtic and ourselves. At 1-1, we put pressure on them and everything was going well. But you have to keep the concentration - we made a mistake and it went to 2-1 because they have quality players who can punish that.
“But we have to build it up from here. To finish third in the Premiership in our first year back up from the Championship is really good, even though we have now lost two games in a row. Maybe people think we are just happy with third place but we want to keep winning games.
“We have a strong team with some young talent. If you can keep a big group of players together, we will have a strong team again next season and we will see where we can finish. We beat Aberdeen in the league and cup this season. Our previous game against Celtic, away from home, was also a really good performance even though we lost in the end.”
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