Heart of Midlothian are set to be without James Penrice for the Scottish Premiership clash with Aberdeen next weekend.

The defender picked up his sixth booking of the season in the 4-1 defeat to Celtic at Tynecastle Park on Saturday evening.

Such a threshold results in a one-game suspension and is valid seven days after the sixth yellow card. It means Neil Critchley will have to do without the left-back.

Penrice has been the team's best player this season and continued his impressive form against Celtic but was shown a yellow by referee Steven McLean in the 70th minute.

Team mates Cammy Devlin and Lawrence Shankland are both one yellow card away from suspension.

Hearts head to Belgium on Wednesday for Thursday night's Conference League clash with Cercle Brugge before returning to face second-place Aberdeen who suffered their first defeat in the league on Saturday afternoon when they went down 2-1 to St Mirren.

The Jam Tarts remain 11th after their latest defeat but Critchley was keen to emphasise the positives despite going down 4-1. 

"I thought 4-1 was very harsh," he said. "I think if you look at the scoreline it looks like a real beating. It was anything but in my opinion.

"I thought we were excellent first half. I thought we were the better team. When you're on top, you need to score. The first goal was massive and we didn't take our chances and you need an element of luck but we didn't get that for the first goal

"The Celtic first goal is just pure luck. We've defended it really well, we've cleared it. It landed straight at Kyoko's feet. Even then, Craigie saves it and it rebounds back to him. We're still in the game at 2-0. We had a chance to go 2-1, we didn't take it.

"Loads of positives. I thought our organisation was good. I thought our structure was good. I thought we pressed well. We went toe-to-toe with a very good team."