Hearts verdict landed by Sunderland man as EPL defender makes 'difficult' Tynecastle admission

An early header from Claudio Braga followed by second-half strikes from Lawrence Shankland and Alexandros Kiziridis handed Derek McInnes’ side a richly deserved win at Tynecastle, as the club celebrated the career of veteran goalkeeper Craig Gordon with a special testimonial clash against his former side.

Coming into the game on the back of four successive wins in the Premier Sports Cup group stages, the hosts enjoyed a comfortable afternoon against the Wearsiders, and could have won by an even bigger margin. The visitors, who included over £100million worth of talent, were completely overpowered at Gorgie, and soundly beaten thanks to impressive performance from McInnes’ new look side.

“That was a hard game for us,” said Seelt. “Props to the opponent because they made this very difficult. Obviously different from what we were used to in the previous games – a lot of direct play, lots of long balls. We just needed to manage it better. It's a good game for us to improve on that side.

“Obviously, we need to look in the mirror and do loads of things better because that wasn't enough. We're in a pre-season where we train really hard – every day it's high intensity, a lot of distance – but there's no excuse to give a performance like this, even if it's a friendly. We need to do better. If you see so many fans show up for a big travel, then we just need to do better. That's an apology from us.

“If you see in Portugal [Sunderland’s previous pre-season games] – I think two games – very high intensity, very good level. Also, training sessions are at a really good level. I think today is just hopefully a one-off, where we just didn't show what we can. But still, we have minutes in the legs.”

Hearts goalkeeper Gordon, who was forced to watch from the bench after being replaced by Zander Clark just 30 seconds into his testimonial at Tynecastle due to a nerve injury, hailed the win as a real statement of intent ahead of the opening game of the Scottish Premiership season against Aberdeen on August 4.

“We controlled the game really well,” said Gordon. “We were good defensively, limited them. I think there was only one long range shot that I can really remember. Nothing much else too troublesome. The boys were brilliant in their shape and what we're trying to do. So yeah, it was a great performance.

“It was a bit of a statement to show what we can do. Three goals is a good number against, what's going to be, a very good team. You can see that perhaps we're a little bit ahead in terms of pre-season, but nonetheless that takes nothing away from our boys' performance, which I thought it was really good.”

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