“We are keen to get a few bodies in. Signing Nicky, we are really delighted to get him. He is a player I know well. I worked with him for a short spell at Bristol City before he got sold. I wanted to keep him then and I have always monitored his career. He has had a few injuries but he is still only 30 years of age.

“When I worked with him he was always someone who was a fantastic finisher. A great boy as well. We are hoping he will enjoy the platform we are able to give him because of the profile of the club. We want to try and get him back doing what he does best, scoring goals.

“The European deadline (this evening) for the first round puts a bit of pressure on us to try and make signings. I would still like to make a couple more if we could. Whether that is today or not I don’t know. We have made plenty of enquires and made a couple of offers. It is ongoing and these things can change quite quickly. We are hopeful we can get something done before the deadline tonight but failing that we will continue with our work. We are trying to make two or three signings before the season starts domestically.”

“This season more than any other there has been work to get done. We had a settled squad for the majority of the last four years. When these games come they are a challenge. We are up against teams who are up and running. You might come up against a settled team who benefit from what we had over the past few seasons. So we have to try and bring in players who have that understanding. We don’t want to just sign a good player. It has to be someone we need and is a good fit for the team.

“It is important for the rest of the squad that we bring in players who they see as really helping us.

“So it has to a level of player but more importantly someone with a specific role in the team. We are keen to make a couple of signings before the deadline. We can still make one signing after the deadline, up to 24 hours before the game, but from an understanding point of view we would like to get them with us as soon as possible.

“I don’t want to speak about any specific players. We have made offers and approaches for several players over the past few weeks and we will see. I am happy to speak about signings once we make them like today with Nicky.

“I have been open about the positions we are trying to fill.

“Bringing in a centre forward who offers us something different was important and we have done that. “I want to get another central defender in. Flexibility is important to us so we are looking for a player who can play several positions. We are also looking at bringing in a wide player. A natural wide player, a ball carrier.

“I would like to bring in players to balance the team. We have a lot of good players in the squad but we lost Jonny and Niall who could get us up the pitch pretty quickly. We are looking for that type of player as well. I can speak about Shaun Maloney. There is still a willingness from both parties to try and get a deal done but Shaun flagged up a little concern before we met. He was very honest with us and he deserves a lot of credit for being as honest and professional as he was. He wants to come here and be our best player, he does not want to be a burden. So he wanted to be transparent with a couple of concerns he had. We are doing further investigation between the both of us but the intention would still be to try and sign Shaun. Unfortunately for us he is not going to be fit for the next few weeks so the priority for me has to be to get players who can help us now.

“We split the staff up to look at both potential European opponents. I concentrated on the team who landed up getting through – Siroki Brijeg. I feel as though, from the two ties they deservedly went through. They were the better of the two teams. They had good energy in the middle of the park. They have a centre forward with good presence. They reminded me a little bit of my first Aberdeen team here with McGinn and Hayes, counter attacking on the sides. They also have really good organisation as well. They were very comfortable last night and went and got a good 0-0 draw away from home. It could have been a tough game because they were up against a good side with good individuals.

“We have had them watched twice and we have all their footage from last season. They do have a couple of signings which changes things a bit but they have picked the same team for the past two games so I feel we have a good understanding of their team.

“Although we are seeded this year, we have always played a good level of team in this round and I think our opponents on Thursday night are exactly that.”

“Although we are seeded this year, we have always played a good level of team in this round and I think our opponents on Thursday night are exactly that.”