After leading the team out and grabbing a second half goal, Nicky Devlin had mixed emotions about Aberdeen’s night against Shaktar Donetsk that ended in 3-2 defeat after a pulsating night’s football. 

“For large spells, the performance was better, against a very good side. We knew they were probably going to have most of the ball and it was so important what we did when we got the opportunity to turn it over. I think tonight we created a few opportunities to hurt them. Set plays, we looked a lot more dangerous than we have. Ultimately a disappointment because we lost the game, but there’s definitely positives to take from it. 

“At 3-1, there’s always a chance that you maybe go and concede 4, 5, 6, especially the way it’s gone for us so far this season. We’ve not put in great performances at times and not got the results we wanted. A lot of character was shown to get back into the game and you see at the end the reaction we got off the supporters, that tells you how much they appreciated the effort.

“I still think we could have been better, especially in the first half when we got a few opportunities to counter them. We knew we had to defend well, and it seems strange saying it because we conceded three goals, but I felt like on the whole we did defend reasonably well. But at this level, as we saw with the play-off round here as well, you make small mistakes and teams at this level, they punish you. That’s what they’ve done tonight. When they got opportunities, they were ruthless and took them. 

“The atmosphere was brilliant. Ever since I’ve been here, if you give the supporters something to get behind, then they get behind you. And the European nights here that I’ve been involved in have been incredible. But as the manager says, it’s not up to them to get us going. We have to give the supporters something to get going and get behind. If we’re not putting performances in, then it’s hard to expect them to keep getting behind the team every time we go out and play. 

“From here, Sunday is all that matters now. It’s nice that we put in a good performance. Ultimately, you don’t get any points, so we have to improve on that. We have to win on Sunday, as simple as that. You want to have nights like this, you have to win games like Sunday. We’re at home. We want to make sure that our record starts to improve here because we’ve given away too many points here already this season. That’s something we have to improve on. 

“It’s about building on tonight and making sure we go into this international break off the back of winning the game on Sunday. In the pressure of moments, we’ve not been great. I touched on it last week after Motherwell. If you don’t want to play under pressure, then this is probably not the place to come. There’s pressure on you all the time to go and win games. We have to put that right on Sunday.”