Livingston 2-2 Hearts: ‘We’re still top of the league’ – Derek McInnes’ reminder

Indeed, Livingston’s leveller came from a slack pass when Craig Halkett failed to find Islam Chesnokov on the right-hand side.

Livi broke up their left and Cristian Montano’s cross found Lewis Smith, who slammed home at the back post.

“The second goal is a ridiculous goal to lose, so we’re disappointed with that,” the Hearts head coach said. “You can’t keep pulling yourself off the canvas.

“Half an hour to go, I wanted to try and carry a bit more threat in that but what you’ve got to remember is you’re up against a team at the bottom of the league and all of a sudden they’ve got something to hang on to.”

After Celtic’s away win at Dundee, it is now Martin O’Neill’s side who have the best away record in the league. Rangers are behind them, with Hearts in third.

The Jambos have only lost five games all season, but all of those defeats have come on the road – to Aberdeen, Hibs, St Mirren, Rangers and Kilmarnock.

McInnes though, was keen to dispel the idea that going away to the likes of Rugby Park and Almondvale are an easy six points.

“There’s no easy games in the league,” he said. We’ve had a poor 20 minutes at Kilmarnock really and got ourselves behind, but we didn’t do enough to win that game either.

“The last couple we’ve been guilty of losing poor goals and not doing enough to win games. The game at St Mirren was 10 men [after Craig Halkett’s red card] and then we lose the game at Ibrox and I thought we were very good in the game.”

“We’re going to have to be really strong with our home form as we have been all season but there’s no doubting that a couple of big results on the road wouldn’t do us any harm. That’s where we need to try and address it.”