Derek McInnes, reaction to tonight's match:

“I thought it was full of intensity.

“I think you saw the best of my team in that opening half hour, I thought we were excellent. I think you see in that period what we are threatening to be this season, playing at that tempo. Some of the quality of the play, the discipline to do our jobs and stop a good team trying to enjoy the game, we felt we needed to try and be that team tonight.

“I think the crowd helped with that, they fed off the performance from the players and the players fed off the crowd and I think in that opening 35 minutes we were fantastic and deservedly 1-0 up.

“It was a fantastic goal from Ryan, showing real quality to adjust. He tells me he's not great in the air but he's adjusted brilliantly. It's similar to the goal he scored at Ibrox. He's managed to just feed it into the far corner.

“I think half time came at a good time for Apollon and I think they were better at the start of the second half. They get the ball forward a bit quicker and tried to play with their striker’s closer together. I don't think we were particularly great with dealing with that to be honest and we should be doing better with that.

“We had a wee 10 minute spell where you felt they were maybe getting too much encouragement. We tried to make the changes, I'm kicking myself that we never made the changes a bit quicker but then they get the goal.

“What I need to say about the goal and all the goals actually. I've looked back at it and you can pick bones out of it where you could stop the cross at source but the quality of the cross is magnificent. The desire from Jander to get on the end of it. Gary has just broken his stride a bit and it is enough. I think it's a very good goal, it's difficult to stop that.

“I think it shows that Apollon Limassol are a good team, and they showed spells of that in the game. It's unrealistic to think we're going to have 90 minutes of total dominance no matter how much we want that, but I thought we got the balance right between attacking and defending spot on. I thought we were brace in possession, we were bright with our work, we were diligent against the ball and honest.

“The goal from Shinnie deserved to win any game.

“We deserved to win the game, but it's only half time and we've got work to do but we're confident we can go over there and get the desired result.

“I think the referee was fine. I thought it was yellow card for Sachetti’s first challenge. I would not have been too surprised if it had been a red card. I think the referee has taken advice from the fourth official who has got the same view as me. He deservedly got sent off later.

“I've got to applaud the temperament of my players to focus on the job, we need somebody to step up and get that winning goal and what a strike from Shinnie.

“There could not be any more love for Graeme Shinnie from our supporters. He plays the game exactly how supporters want players to play. When he produces that quality it shows you exactly what he is. It meant so much to get that result to tonight and we take it with us.

“It's four 45 minutes in Europe, I always look at it that way. We're at half time, so we've got to go there and show the confidence to get the result.

“The yellow card Graeme got early on was frustrating. He has won the ball. Yes he has cleaned the boy out but it is a proper tackle. A couple of times after that he went into tackles mindful he was on a yellow but it did not stop him. You have to be what you are. I thought he got the balance right.

“At this stage of the competition you have to be ready for a decent opponent. They are more than decent. They are a very good side. We have to be respectful of their qualities and we have to try and get the balance right between attacking and defending.

“We will go to Cyprus next week to score a goal. We are not going there to try and defend a 2-1 lead.

“We know that we are capable of getting good results on the road. A lot of our best results have been on the road. We look forward to it.

“Adam Rooney has a chance to make the trip. The assessment from the scan was at worst a week to ten days.

“So we are hoping it heels quickly but we won’t take a risk on him because of the nature of the injury. He is 50-50 to make the flight.

“I love European football. I loved it as a player and I love it as a manager. It gets the staff busy and focussed. I think the crowd do that here as well. Aberdeen have always traditionally had their best moments as club in European football. You see the sell-out crowd tonight. The supporters respond to it.  

“When you see an atmosphere like that you want it to be more like that all the time. Hopefully we have a similar noise, support, numbers against Hamilton because they were fantastic tonight. Ten out of ten for them.

“I don’t think any two games are the same. We have to try and negate the qualities of Apollon. They have got some good players. It will be a different environment for us, the temperature, the home support. We just have to focus on producing a level of performance that can get us a result.

“I think it will be a more technical game potentially in Cyprus. However we have to play we are confident we can get a result.”