Manager Barry Robson and Nicky Devlin both spoke to the media ahead of Thursday night’s UEFA Europa Conference League Group G match with HJK Helsinki at Pittodrie. RedTV subscribers can watch the press conference through the video above. You can read the thoughts of Barry below.

“When you get to this level in Europe, every game is so difficult. We know that if we’re not at our best we can lose games and especially at this level. I just look at it as an opportunity to be at home. With all of our fans behind us who have been great and hopefully we can put a performance on and do all of the things we’ve worked on and do it right. If we do that then we’ve got an opportunity to win the game.

“It looks like we’re motoring a wee bit, we’ve been performing well. I think before that we were performing well in certain games. I’ve said that before, obviously there was a few games where we weren’t at it but we had to improve. Over the last couple of weeks you can see that the boys are starting to get to know each other a lot more and we’ve been looking a lot sharper and brighter. We have had a wee bit more luck as well at times which you always need. We are in a good place at the minute but as I said, you can never get carried away in this game. Myself and my staff always give 100% to every game and we expect that from the players as well. When you do that you give yourself an opportunity

“One thing I am huge on is culture at this football club. I learned that a long time ago, Derek McInnes was big on that and the top managers that I’ve played under always had that. You have to have a good group, you have to have a good culture. It has been here from day one. I demand that, my staff demand that some of the senior players like Nicky (Devlin) and Graeme (Shinnie), they demand that in their dressing room. Never ever, ever do I want people sulking about training grounds. We are here to work and we are here to perform for Aberdeen and we are here to bring our best everyday. That’s always been here.

“Helsinki will come here with confidence. As I said top teams at this level they will be confident coming here but we are also confident as well. It is a difficult game for us and it will be a difficult game for them. They will know that they have been in a game and that’s one thing that I’ve always said, what I want this club to be, when people come up here, they need to know that they’re in a game. And I think we’ve done that over the last eight months.

“The beauty of  playing in Europe and then if you go and play in the Scottish League Cup or the Scottish Premiership, every game is different tactically. You can come up against a Rangers or Celtic, you have to be different tactically or a Frankfurt. You can come up against teams in the Scottish Premiership when it can been hard to predict what can happen in certain games. We need to make sure that we try and look at every game differently and we try and find the best ways and solutions to give ourselves a chance to perform with and without the ball. It is the detail which I look into the games and when you do that it gives the players a chance and then it’s over to them to go and execute it. There’s one thing that will never change in the game of football and that’s going to win second balls and winning first contacts. In my experience and if you look at data and stats, if you bring that, you’ve got a big percentage of winning a football match.

“The club is built on great history here and you can feel it every time that I’ve been involved in a European night when I played here. I think that’s an extra positive that we are in the group stages. Steve Agnew said that to me, that when you see the allocation that we take away from home and you see the stadium being sold out. Steve Agnew has been in the English Premiership for the last 15, he says that you can feel the tradition and you can feel the history of the club. That is why it’s such a great club. That is where we want to be and the fans make it a great night and we just need to try and perform our best and it’s where you want to be. This is the place where you want to go and perform. At the moment we are fighting on all fronts and we enjoy that. We have a lot of games, we need to rotate the squad and we need to perform well. It is definitely where the club wants to be. I think there is an excitement right through the city which has been great. We just need to keep performing well and hopefully we can do that tomorrow.”