Hearts beat St Johnstone in a seven-goal thriller on their return to the Scottish Premiership.

The Hearts old-boy, who started the ball rolling by falling over to hand Robbie Neilson’s men an early lead, believed all four goals should have been prevented. “I made a bad mistake – I just took a touch and I slipped”.

“He was good anyway, but now he has taken that extra step and he just seems to be the complete goalkeeper”. It’s our first season back in the Premiership and everyone has their own opinion about what we could do, but we can only focus on ourselves.

“We caused them a lot of problems physically”.

“I don’t think he can keep that up”. It was criminal.

St Johnstone defender Brad McKay accused Hearts new boy Juanma of going down too easily in yesterday’s Tynecastle encounter.

“It was a really nerve wracking game for us”, he said. It’s as simple as that.

After Jamie Walker nearly scored his second goal, the young forward then played a delightful pass to Callum Paterson and the big utility player drove the ball past Mannus to put Hearts 3-1 ahead.

“It’s all things that shouldn’t happen. It’s a shame it has gone the way it has because I thought we deserved to win”.

McKay and Juanma squared up following a coming together in the second half. He gets touched and he goes down.

St Johnstone looked to have clawed their way back into the game as they netted twice in quick succession, Sutton’s glancing header finding the bottom corner with Alexander rooted to the spot.

Of Juanma, McKay added: “Maybe he’ll win them penalties and free-kicks in risky areas… we’ll see”. He done well with a couple of goals, but I don’t think they appreciate going down so easily. “I don’t think anyone in Scotland likes that, to be honest”. “As a defender you like that”.

He said: “We knew it was going to be really hard”.

“It’s a bit concerning it’s the groin again. Chris has played a lot of football over the last three or four years, so we need to have a look again at how we manage it”.

“As soon as I felt contact I was on my way down”, Nicholson said. But we haven’t. “He’s the type of guy that’ll get over it – he’s a good enough player”.

Nicholson then cleared off the line after John Sutton got on the end of Lappin’s left wing cross and headed goalwards. They had Sam Nicholson to thank for a goal-line clearance in the first half, but they would also have enjoyed a more comfortable conclusion to the game if Nicholson had scored instead of blasting wide at 3-1.