Christian Borchgrevink suffered a hamstring injury during Hearts’ Conference League defeat at Trabzonspor and will be assessed in the next few days. The Norwegian defender was forced off before half-time in Turkiye as Mo Salah and Dju Franculino scored to give the hosts victory in the UEFA Conference League tie.

Hearts head coach Wouter Vrancken declared himself proud of his players, who put in a commendable performance despite missing many influential figures. Craig Halkett, Blair Spittal, Tom Renaud, Harry Milne, Oisin McEntee, Eduardo Ageu, Stuart Findlay all missed the game.

Milne suffered a knee injury in training on Wednesday night. He limped out of Papara Park on crutches and in a prorective brace. There are now fears he could miss the rest of the season. However, his team-mates rallied to overcome the disappointment of Sunday’s 7-1 loss against Celtic and restore some pride at Papara Park. Winger Rogers Mato had a fine game as an emergency left-back and full-back Jordi Altena stood out in central midfield. Hearts almost took the lead through Malachi Fagan-Walcott’s early header, which rebounded off the post.

“In the dressing room, I said to them how proud I am today about their performance,” said Vrancken. “When you lose, you always have this negative feeling, being a sportsman, but knowing where it comes from after the weekend, and all the injury stuff. We have only one midfielder left, six injured, so I have to say that you can't put your foot next to this team of Trabzonspor who spent a lot of money in the summer and even got a Mo Salah on a free transfer. You know what quality they have.

“I’m really proud of the performance from them, and then for me, they bounced back from the weekend performance-wise. It's just a pity that we couldn't have the result because I think we didn't give too much away. The goals, we could prevent them, of course. It's a shame that we have the penalty there, and we had to take our moments there. There were a few moments. Also, the clearest moment was the header from Malachi on the post.

“When you want to win those top games in Europe, you have to take those moments. But nothing bad about them because also defensive-wise, with [Rogers] Mato at left-back, he was unbelievable. He was against one of the best players in Europe in this position. Also Jordi [Altena], out of position, played a really great game. So I'm really happy about the performance, and I'm just happy that there was no result.”

Vrancken provided some detail on Borchgrevink’s issue: “Yeah, it was his hamstring. So, like he said himself: when it rains, it pours. It's a bit like this at this moment. We have to manage it properly and try to get the best out of everybody. I hope to see that the guys out of position also, put everything in there, and do everything for the team, to help the team in these moments. So I'm happy to see this.

“It's very important this performance, to go to the next one to show that we can bounce back performance-wise. And hopefully it will give us confidence towards the weekend. We saw again guts on the ball, you saw people being brave in defence and one-v-ones against really top players. So it also has to give confidence towards the weekend.”

Vrancken explained why he selected Mato at left-back. “Mato is from the offensive players and I couldn't put a defender there, so we had to play an offensive player there,” he said. “With his speed against Salah, it was a plus. And I know that in one-v-one situations he is difficult to pass when he's focusing on it. He showed it today. You can think about it as long as you won before the game. When Salah scores two times, three times today, then you say that your decision was s**t. But at the end of the day, you have to make some decisions like this, and it worked well. He played against Mo Salah and kept him out of the game. So a really great performance."

Milne’s injury is a knee problem and he will be scanned back in Edinburgh. “Like Borchgrevink, when it rains, it pours. Harry was unlucky because there was no fatigue since he didn't play in the last game. It was not a contact, not a duel, not a crazy move or something. He injured his knee, so we have to see what the scans will say.”