Craig Gordon reacts to Hearts missile incident as furious keeper tells Zurich fans 'there's absolutely no excuse'

Craig Gordon says there's "absolutely no excuse" after he was hit by a missile during Hearts' Europa League qualifying defeat to Zurich at Tynecastle.

The goalkeeper went down clutching his head as TV footage showed he was struck with an object thrown from the Zurich end in the second-half of Thursday's playoff second leg. Robbie Neilson's side lost 3-1 on aggregate and now drop into the Europa Conference League group stage.

Hearts had dominated the tie until Jorge Grant was shown a second yellow card for diving and Fabian Rohner's late goal sent the Swiss champions through on a frustrating night for a capacity home support in Gorgie. What was an otherwise competitive and entertaining 90 minutes was marred by Gordon being targeted from the away end. And the 39-year-old Scotland international admits being "disappointed" by the incident. He told STV: "I couldn't see, I couldn't find what it was.

"Maybe one of the TV cameras caught but I was hit with something on the back of the head. It's not ideal. You don't want to be facing that when you're on the pitch, it can be dangerous. That's disappointing.

"There's absolutely no excuse for it, the players are out there putting on a great show. It was a really good game, you don't need to be facing that as well. So, yeah, disappointing. I hope we can all do something to stop it but it's very difficult."