Ahead of Aberdeen’s final UEFA Conference League fixture in Prague tomorrow night, Jimmy Thelin spoke to the press about how his side are looking to approach the game.

RedTV subscribers can watch the joint press conference with Jimmy Thelin and Kevin Nisbet here. 

“We are very motivated of course to win the game. Sparta is a really strong opponent. The way they play, the intensity they play with is what makes them a strong team. They play very intensely, they have a great coach. They have a quality attack and they press well. So for me as a coach, it is also an opportunity for us to prove that we can match this. Sparta has a lot of good players, but I believe that tomorrow we will be able to beat them. 

“Sparta are high in the table, like Strasbourg last week. That is good for us also to play these teams, take this information about what we need to do to grow in the future. To be more competitive and even stronger. I feel the team has grown from the play-offs to the group stage. 

“The season is so long. You have to grow every week to try to get better and better performances. We start the season with playing against Fulham and Ipswich to get this intensity. I think it is clear in all these games we have played that the quality is high, and if you do one mistake, they punish you. Football is a game of mistakes, but you can’t do too many in some areas, because then someone will punish you. 

“For us, I think that it is really important to be consistent in our performance and not see any differences between games. We want to be consistent as a team. That is why we try to show our best performance in every game and we are doing this better now.

“You can win football games in different ways. Sometimes you have to adapt to the situation through strategy, and sometimes you want to challenge them with your own identity to get up to speed in the game. There is a lot of experience and information that we have gained. 

“We already know what level we need to get to. We have something to improve. We know what things we need to do differently. When we need to adapt to the opponent when he plays a lot tactically. When we need to stick to our game style. I think we gained a lot of experience this season.

“For me, as a coach, I mainly learned to work with these players, how to motivate them. How to work with them when we have to travel a lot, on long trips. How to make changes in the team, so that we do not lose the rhythm, because you need fresh players, but you also need to keep a consistent performance. It’s all connected. Next year, the team may change a bit, but I think the group I have now is really good and we have made good progress.”

With the Dons unable to progress further in the competition and a trip to Celtic Park on the horizon on Sunday, the Manager refused to speculate about any changes to his team for Thursday.

“We have a strong competition inside the squad, players want to play in the starting XI, they want to be at the World Cup. They want to grow. For us it is a good opportunity to keep growing. Tomorrow I want to send the best team to the pitch, but as I said, there is a big competition on all levels. 

“You see this with Dylan Lobban. It’s his first season in the first team, so I’m really happy for him. All the work he put in, he deserves this. He has grown step by step. He pushes himself to be ready for an opportunity. He pushes himself to get it. Players always want to play. They put so many hours and work into being competitive in a squad, but also they have to be at a level where they have this capacity to perform on Thursday and Sunday, because we want to be in this position next season also.”

Finally, Jimmy addressed speculation surrounding Peter Leven’s role at Pittodrie.

“I think always when you are working hard in this business and you do a good job, someone can be interested in you, but we haven’t talked about anything else than Aberdeen right now. 

“Everybody owns his own life and must make the best decisions, but Peter, right now he is working hard for us. Of course, when you are working in football and you are successful, others will be interested. Right now he is working for Aberdeen and he doesn’t focus on anything else.”