Ahead of tomorrow’s game in Athens, Nicky Devlin has called on the Dons to draw on the confidence that comes from securing back-to-back Premiership wins.
“We know that coming to places like this to play, it’s always difficult. But the fact that we’re going into it with two wins does make us feel a little bit more confident. We’re starting to play well now, a bit later than we wanted to, but hopefully we can take that into tomorrow night.
“I think we have to be ready for a tough night and a hostile atmosphere, but that’s what you expect in these games. It’s an environment that you want to play in, you want to test yourself in in those situations. There’s a few of us that have played these kind of games, like against PAOK, we’ve got a lot of players from different countries that are used to playing in atmospheres like this, so we’ll be well prepared for it and hopefully we can deal with it when the game comes.
“I thought for large spells against Shakhtar, we were really good. It probably highlighted how clinical it is at this level and how ruthless teams are, and we expect that tomorrow night, that if we do make small mistakes, then at this level we get punished.
“But it gave us a lot of confidence, we scored two goals against a really good side, we conceded a goal that we could have done better with, so we took positives from it, but ultimately we lost the game. We’re coming here and trying to replicate the performance, at times, make better decisions and hopefully pick up points.
“From there, we’ve won our last two games. Every time you win a game, you feel more confident, you feel like you’re getting better but especially coming somewhere that’s going to be as difficult as it is tomorrow night, the fact that we’re going in off the back of two good results is helpful.”
Nicky will come up against James Penrice in the game, a former teammate at Livingston, who made the move to Greece from Hearts this summer.
“He was obviously at a big club in Scotland, but I’m delighted he got the move to a club like AEK Athens. It probably was a bit of a surprise, because you don’t see too many Scottish players coming over here to play, but he’s done so well. He did well at Livingston to get his move to Hearts, and then in his position, he was one of the standout players in the league last year. From what I’ve heard, he enjoys being here already, he’s loving it.
“He’s probably one of my best pals in football, I’ve played with him for three years, and it’ll be good to come up against him. It won’t be a new thing, we’ve played against each other with Hearts the last couple of years as well. But when the game starts, friendships go out the window, and you try and do whatever you can to win the game.”
