Barry Robson spoke to the media on Friday morning to preview our cinch Premiership match with St Mirren in Paisley on Sunday and also reflected on last night’s Europa League Play-off draw with BK Hacken. RedTV subscribers can watch in full now.
“I thought that we were okay in the first-half, I thought that we were quite good. People need to remember how good a side they are. They are the Swedish champions, I think everybody forgot about that. You don’t become the champions of Sweden if you are a poor side. We knew how difficult it was going to be and we knew how good a side that they were. We grew into the game and got stronger and stronger. You could see the impact that the subs had, which we are going to need throughout the season.
“We have a lot of games coming up. A lot of the players that we have taken in are probably 60-90% there from what we want. They are still taking time to get up to speed. Probably half the group have had a full pre-season with us which is good but the other ones need to try and catch up to how we want to do things. They are all willing. They are a good group, we have tried to sign players with a good mentality, who have good work rate and who can play to the demands of what it takes to play for Aberdeen.
“It has been a while since Jamie McGrath has played but you can see he has looked after himself and you can see he is physically a good athlete. A lot of that is what we have tried to recruit as well. Jimmy McGarry we are trying to get him shredded into what we need as well. He is a powerful athlete. He has been training with boys who have tapered off the pre-season, the sessions have been intense but not as long. We have been taking him in on the afternoon, he has been on the bike, he has been on the pitch, he has been with the development squad to catch in sessions as well. We are trying to get him up to speed as quick as we can.
“It’s a squad effort, it always has been and always will be. Especially in this day and age with the speed of the games. We have tried to get players in who can make us stronger coming off of the bench. It is a case of different types of games need a different type of player. That is why at times when you go to difficult grounds, like St. Mirren, you need some size in your team, you need to be able to cope with set plays and the long balls up to you. If you go away to Hacken then you might need more speed in your team if you want to be more aggressive. We have tried to give the squad a generalisation to cover all bases. We need to make sure we select the right players. We understand that we are going to pick up some injuries, we are going to pick up some fatigue along the way. We have got to be clever with who we play and why we play them.
“It always is a challenge playing against St Mirren. They are well coached and well drilled. 3-5-2 or 4-3-3, they mix it up a bit, they throw in a couple of different presses, they mix it up a bit, they ask you a couple of different questions. They are well organised, they have good players and it is a difficult place to go. We know all of that, we know it is a tough game, it is a totally different game. The beauty of Scottish football and when you have to go into Europe, this is our fourth away game and we have had one at home. You have to go against Livingston who play a different type of football, then against Celtic it is a different game. Then we go to Stirling Albion and everyone wants you to get beat after what happened previously, and we win it. Then we go to Hacken which is a totally different game on astro-turf and then we go to St Mirren away. You need to be adaptable and have a good mentality. You can’t always bring what you want to bring to the game because you need to adapt to the opposition. That’s why we have built a squad and let the players know that every game is going to be different and we need to ways to win but bringing speed to each game.
“The players are just arriving in right now. We are finalising our St Mirren details now. The players will go out and train, some will go and recover. Everybody seems to be fine so far and hopefully we can have a clean bill of health.”
