Cameron Carter-Vickers insists Celtic can take positives from Hearts defeat

Celtic defender Cameron Carter-Vickers vowed to focus on what they can control after a weekend where refereeing decisions and results elsewhere sparked headlines.

The cinch Premiership champions lost the chance to go top of the table after Rangers were beaten at home by Motherwell on Saturday.

Adam Idah’s penalty miss and a red card for Yang Hyun-jun, which Celtic have challenged, saw the pressure swing against Brendan Rodgers’ side in the opening quarter of Sunday’s clash at Hearts.

The hosts went on to take the lead through a controversial penalty for handball against Tomoki Iwata and Zander Clark continued to defy Celtic as Steven Naismith’s side sealed a 2-0 win.

Celtic remain two points behind Rangers, but Carter-Vickers offered some perspective as the league gets set to break for Scottish Gas Scottish Cup quarter-final weekend.

“It was obviously difficult (going down to 10 men),” the centre-back said. “It was disappointing that we didn’t get the result that we wanted to.

“But, all in all, I think we can be proud of the performance that we gave. We created a lot of chances, even when we went down to 10 men.

“So, yeah, I think there are a lot of positives that we can take from it. Whether we won that game or not, what we have to do for the rest of the season is pretty clear. We will just focus on that.”

Carter-Vickers moved the topic away from talk of decisions that could decide the title.

“They could do, but we can’t let our focus go on to that,” he said. “We have just got to focus on our own performance.

“Even when we went down to 10 men, we created a good few chances. We probably would have liked to have stopped them from scoring a second. That is all we can focus on.

“As long as we keep improving and getting better we will be all right.”

Carter-Vickers did not view the defeat as a missed opportunity even though the outcome kept Celtic in second.

“It is always difficult when you go down to 10 men,” he added. “You are naturally going to lose a bit of control of the game. I thought for large parts we were probably the team that created the better chances.

“We have just got to have faith that if we keep doing that then we will pick up the results that we want.

“We have also got to play each other twice. Clearly nothing is done yet. For us it is about focusing on ourselves and what we can control and trying to be the best versions of ourselves that we can.”