"If Wouter Vrancken was given the opportunity to play this game again, would he change anything?"

The question was posed by bewildered former Heart of Midlothian midfielder Andy Halliday after the Tynecastle club were torn apart by Celtic on Sunday. His suspicion is that the Belgian coach would not.

Vrancken's side were two down inside 10 minutes. Four adrift inside 40. A fifth was conceded before the break. Two more found their net after half-time on what was a wretched day in Hearts' nascent title challenge.

The Celtic Park scenes offered echoes of what happened in the opening games of his tenure - heavy European qualification defeats by Sturm Graz and Benfica as a wide-open, attack-minded side were torn asunder.

But it's how Hearts' new head coach plays - how the club want him to play - and a style which had underpinned a goal-laden run of 13 games with just one defeat.

Afterwards, Vrancken spoke repeatedly of mistakes by players which cost his side goals. He did not, however, reflect on his own decisions.

"We made a few individual mistakes," he told BBC Sport Scotland. "Two set-plays killed our game at the start. All of their goals were individual mistakes and then it's difficult to win a game.

"In the set-play moments, you have to be on top of your toes, you have to be on front foot to attack the ball. Against individual mistakes, you can't do too much.

"Only thing that cannot happen is that everybody starts doubting now in his own qualities. Also, when you are one of the guys that made a mistake, just learn from it.

"After Monday, it has to be gone because there's another game to come."

'I've never seen defending like it'

It is inarguable that Hearts players made bad decisions in big moments at a place where their title dreams crumbled last May.

Indeed, former Tynecastle defender Ryan McGowan suggested "a lot of players went missing" and that whatever instructions Vrancken gave them "went completely out their ears".

Former Scotland striker Kris Boyd, though, was more astonished by how Hearts approached the trip to a venue where they won last autumn.

"I've never seen defending like that in all my life," he said on Sky Sports. "Hearts are still trying to go toe-to-toe with Celtic on 89 minutes.

"You've got to pay respect to Celtic. If you go man-for-man, they will demolish you and that's exactly what happened there."

Halliday picked up that theme and suggested that Vrancken might benefit from adapting his preferred approach in circumstances such as these.

"There was no accountablity," he added on Sportsound. "He was talking about players' errors, rather than his own errors, which were pretty glaring for me.

"Anyone who's watched Celtic this year will know they target the front post from set-pieces, but Hearts' set up didn't try to negate that.

"I've praised Vrancken to the hilt - and I still think they'll finish in the top three - but my worry is if he had the opportunity to play that game again, I don't think he'd do anything differently and what he said just proved that."

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