Speaking after the Dons fell to defeat in Athens, Jimmy Thelin admitted his side were beaten by a better team, but promised that it would be a very different Dons display against Hibs on Sunday.

“We felt prepared before the game as a collective to do a better performance. When the game starts like it did, you try to do good things, but every time we lose the ball, they hurt us. In our transition, how they exposed us between the lines. There’s a lot of things that didn’t work for us, so we have to learn from this game as a collective, as a coaching team, as a manager, as individuals.

“When you play against this quality, they show you where you need to improve and how you have to grow as a collective and as an individual. I think we’re going to learn a lot.

“I am the manager of this football team. I take responsibility. My job is to help the players to cope in this context. AEK Athens show us things we need to work on and keep working on. Because they expose us and have this quality, one against one, the first touch, the passes, and the way they manage the ball.

“Now it’s a lot of emotions with everybody, but when everything calms down, we have a lot of things to learn from this game and we have to improve. That’s why we do this. We win and we lose together.

“Sometimes you can also put your hands up. They were really good. Sometimes the opponents show that we have a journey to do as a team and how we want to work and how we want to improve in the future.

“I think the best I can do as a manager now is to support my players. We try to focus on the right things and learn from this one and show our supporters on Sunday that we can do really well in the league. Then, we have a journey to do to reach another level to try to compete in Europe. That’s why I said we have to learn a lot from this and try to build, this year and next year, to be a more competitive team in these kind of games.

“The most important thing for us right now is that we have a super important game on Sunday. That’s why we have to focus on the right things and show our support that we can play a good game in the league against Hibs on Sunday. We have a different kind of game and we play at home at Pittodrie. I’m 100% convinced that everybody wants to show our fans that we can do much, much better.

“We have to show up after these results and then change the focus. I’m so convinced that it’s not going to be any problem to show our fans and show ourselves that we are much better than we did today. Football and sport in general is always the next game. You get sometimes hammered down and you get a wake-up call. OK, we have a journey to do as a team and the best way to do that is directly attack the next game. This is what we will do.”