Heart of Lions coach Yusif Abubakar has lamented his side's failure to cope with the pace of the game for their heavy defeat to Hearts on Wednesday.

According to the former Hearts of Oak trainer, his boys struggled to keep up with the tempo as a strong performance from the Phobians put his side on the back foot - the resulting punishment was to end up conceding four first half goals at the Robert Mensah Stadium.

Hearts who were determined to lift themselves from the relegation zone opened the scoring as early as the 6th minute through Selasi Adjei before Togolese forward Foovi Aguidi got his brace in the 25th and 37th minutes respectively. Eric Kumi added the fourth just on the stroke of half time.

"In the first half, the tempo was too high, we couldn’t control it and in every game, if you are not able to control the tempo, that is where you find problems. They were too hard on us, we couldn’t control it so we were punished for it," coach Abu confessed at post-match.

"It happens in football once a team can concede four goals but you don’t concede and then you do not also play well. That is where I’m surprised. The performance was bad and the scoreline too was actually the true reflection of the game because we did not play well at all. They were too complacent. They played very well against AshGold and won.

Lions are now back in the relegation zone at 14th position with 7 more games to end the season and coach Abu knows his side struggling side must come out of their bad run with good performances to survive the league.

"We have to be consistent because if you play in the league and you are not consistent, you will always go forward and come back [on the table] - that's what happens so we need to be consistent and then the complacency has to be taken off.

"Nobody can see where his team will be unless after the seven games so we are always hammering that we have to play very well and we will continue to work on that," he said.

Heart of Lions return home to host All Stars at the Kpando Park on match day 24 this Sunday.