Cammy Devlin has stressed his on-field argument with Hearts captain Lawrence Shankland was a misunderstanding.
Tempers appeared to flare between the two players against Copenhagen on Thursday night after Devlin bounced the ball in frustration in front of Shankland.
It was during a stop in play and Devlin looked rather bewildered after Shankland reacted strongly. But the Aussie midfielder insists it isn’t anything to worry about.
Devlin on Shankland altercation vs Copenhagen
Hearts lost 2-0 at the Parken Stadium in the end as Devlin explained: “Hey, I know. We were laughing. We were arguing about a complete misunderstanding.
“He thought I was throwing the ball because he didn’t get it. But I was throwing the ball because I didn’t hit him with the pass.
“We’ve kissed and made up in there. We’re out there. We’re losing. We both want to win. You can see how hard we all try.
“At the end of the day, if you don’t see that, then you’d probably start asking questions as to why we’re not getting into each other. But it’s only passion.
“We both just want to win for the team. We’ve kissed and made up. It was just a misunderstanding. We were arguing about completely different things.
“He thought I was going long but I tried to play him and I missed the pass. And then I got angry at myself because I missed the pass. He thought I was angry at him for not getting it.
“That’s just football. I feel like you’ve got to be passionate. You’ve got to yell at your team-mates. If they do well, get into them. If they do bad, get into them.
“Because they say you get the best out of each other. We’re fine. We could argue properly and then get in there and have a hug and a kiss and we’d be fine.”
Kilmarnock & Petrocub next up for Hearts
It’s a bottom of the Premiership table clash between Kilmarnock and Hearts next for the Jambos, but one eye is definitely on Petrocub next week at Tyencastle, as a win is likely to secure progression to the knockout play-off round.
Devlin said: “It hasn’t been a great start to the season by any stretch. We’re nowhere near where we want to be in the league. We haven’t got a result in our last three Conference games.
“First and foremost, Sunday is all we think about now. We need to get a result and start climbing up that table. I think that goes without saying. Then we’ll look to Thursday when we’re at home.
“More than likely, if we win, we will go through. You have to be confident. We’re at home. All the home games we’ve had, we’ve done really well.
“Look at Heidenheim, another great team, but I feel in the first half if we score our chances we probably go in 2-0 up at half-time and you never know.
“It’s about picking ourselves up like we have had to do a lot this season. Just be men. When you’re at a club like Hearts, I’ve said it before, you have to stand up in these moments.
“You’re not walking away with your tail between your legs as such because of the calibre of opposition, I feel anyway. I feel like we did everything we could and probably got beat by a better team.”