Joe Lewis spoke to RedTV this morning before the team left for Slovenia.

This tie is on a bit of a knifes-edge at the moment after last week’s 1-1 draw at Pittodrie…

“Yeah definitely. I think we played really well, first half especially where I remember we had several really good chances and their keeper was making some great saves. We can take confidence from that going into this leg that we can create things against this team and it is about taking our opportunities and maintaining concentration at the back and making sure we do our best as a goalkeeper and a defence to make sure we keep a clean sheet”.

It was your first experience of a proper Pittodrie night, what was your thoughts? The crowd were certainly with us from start to finish…

“The crowd were fantastic. I was told before signing that if you do well for this club the crowd will get behind you 100% and you can see that. We started well and the crowd just really got behind us and it snowballed a wee bit. They pushed us on and helped us create more chances. We couldn’t quite put them away and their goalkeeper pulled off a couple of great saves. Hopefully we can go out there, put in a similar performance and get the result we want”.

The defence have been playing well. Despite the fact it must take time as a keeper and a back four to gel with each other, but it seems to have worked fairly early on for you?

“Yeah, I feel fairly solid at the back. I’m enjoying being in the games. We’ve always got goals in our team. The quality we’ve got going forward, I don’t think many people can doubt that we are always likely to score a goal, so as a team and as a goalkeeper myself it is important that we make sure we are solid at the back as we have goals going forward and if we can keep it tight at the back that is a great recipe for success”.

It will probably be a different game over in Slovenia, but they will have the crowd behind them and we have 400 fans who I’m sure will make themselves heard. Maribor will probably sit in as they don’t need to score and we do which makes it an intriguing encounter.

“It will be interesting to see how they go at it, obviously we need to be positive and on the front foot like we were in the first leg. No matter how the tie lies, I wouldn’t want to go there and just sit back because it is a dangerous way to play and I am sure they will probably be thinking the same thing. I’m sure they won’t be careless going forward, but I’m sure they will be wary staying back and inviting pressure so it will be interesting to see how they go about it. We want to be on the front foot, as aggressive and as positive as we can”.

Even if they score it doesn’t change the complexion of the tie much as we still would only need to score one to take the game to extra-time.

“We need a goal so it is important we go there with that positive attitude and we know we have goals in the team. We can go there with a lot of positivity.”

The weather will be warm during the day, but hopefully cool off by KO!

“We’ve played in heat earlier on in Luxembourg and didn’t put in a great performance, but I don’t think that was to do with the temperatures. We are fitter now so I don’t think that will be a problem now”.

A massive chance to get a step closer to those elusive group stages which is what everyone at the club really wants.

“That’s the goal really. For us to go there and get a result would be huge and like you say it would be one step closer and then we would just have the play-off to contend with which would be a task in itself. That’s the goals and what everyone has in the back of their minds and that is why we have to go to Slovenia tomorrow night and give it a right go”.