Scott Brown believes that Craig Levein is using his obsession with the Celtic skipper to deflect attention from another defeat.
In January the Hearts boss claimed that players needed protection from Brown after Harry Cochrane got injured trying to tackle the Celtic midfielder.
Sam Cosgrove and Cedric Kipre both decided to take that a step further with brutal attacks on Brown.
Steven Naismith was the latest player to try and seriously injure Brown with the hoops skipper knowing who the instigator of the ‘challenge’ was.
“Craig’s banter is getting better as he gets older,” Brown told the Evening Times. “If he was younger and had this sort of banter I’d have been buzzing!
“Craig can say what he wants. It’s all speech play to deflect from the result and how well we played them at our own game and the fact we beat them on a shocking park.”
Hearts have lost all three of their post split fixtures and host Hibs at Tynecastle tonight.
After winning a Scottish Cup tie against Neil Lennon’s side Levein claimed that the ‘natural order’ had been restored. Hearts kick off tonight’s match 20 points behind Hibs.
With two matches left to play Hearts are nine points behind Kilmanock with the two clubs meeting at Rugby Park on Sunday.
