Barry Robson spoke to the media on Wednesday afternoon as he previewed our game with Hearts this Saturday at Pittodrie. The Dons will be looking to build on our last victory in the cinch Premiership when we defeated Dundee United 3-1 at Tannadice. You can watch the press conference in full on RedTV through the video below.

Question: A week with no game, has it been a blessing to get some extra work in with the boys?

Answer: “At this stage of the season, I think that less is more sometimes. You can’t just over train players because you will make them more tired, you can create injuries, some of the guys have played over 30 games. You need to be clever on how you work.  We’ve tried to rest them up as well and we’ve also tried to put some intense training sessions in as well. We are trying to get the balance right, and trying to keep everyone as fit and as fresh as we can at this stage of the season.

“They need to enjoy their training but they also need to know that they’re here to work. It’s getting that balance right as well. Some training sessions are not as enjoyable as others, but some are. That’s where you need to get the balance right. They need to know that they’re here to work, we’re a working club, we’re working players. We want to get that message across to them. We also need to be clever with how we create sessions, how we put them on, so they’re enjoyable, but they’re also making the players better. Things that gets habitual in their minds. They start to do things automatically on a Saturday or whatever day we play on so these are the things we try and work on.”

Q: Will this game be a real test to show far the team has come since the defeat at Tynecastle?

A: “The last Hearts games is nothing that I have thought about to be honest with you. How long ago was that? Six weeks, two months ago? It’s a long, long, long time ago. My focus has been on what we’ve achieved over the past four or five weeks. I think that we’ve been better, I think we’ve gradually got better with how we want to play. We’ve had a few good results, which is important and I think we’re in a place where we’re okay, we’re all right at the minute. I think there’s lots of room for improvement. I’m sure all the players would agree. I think we get better every day in training but that never guarantees that you just win every football match. What we need to do is go out there and try our best to make sure that we perform to our best levels. That gives you a better chance of winning a football match.”Q: How much are you looking forward to the game this weekend?

A: “It’s a really difficult game, a difficult challenge again on Saturday. As I said its the same 100% focus on trying to get all of the fans back happy because they’ve been outstanding, we saw that at Tannadice. They’ve been so good. I hope to see them in huge numbers again supporting us. I know Hearts have sold out their allocation. It would be great to get all of the Aberdeen fans getting right behind the team. I remember playing in this team when we took 43,000 fans down to Celtic Park. I’ve seen how good they are. For me if you can get all the Aberdeen fans out backing the club that will really help the players because they’ve been outstanding since I’ve been here.”

Q: With the international break coming up, how much do you want to keep that feel good factor around the club going?

A: “Yeah, definitely but we know it’s going to be difficult. Robbie Neilson has done a terrific job at Hearts, they have got good players. They are a big club, it will be a hard game for us. We’ve got a good record at home. We need to try and take the game to them and we need to try and win the game. Is it going to be easy? No, it’s not and as I said we’re going to need to be at 100% to try and get a result because they are where they are at the minute because that’s how they’ve performed. We need to go and try and catch them, we need to try and get as close to them as we possibly can and perform at our best levels. That’s what we need to try and do.”