Aberdeen Head Coach Stephen Robinson met with the media on Friday afternoon ahead of Saturday's game against Dundee United.

RedTV subscribers can watch his press conference now by clicking here.

Saturday’s challenge

“We want to finish the season strongly. We want to make sure that we’re 100% away from the playoff position. And as I said, we want to go and win the game.

“Dundee United had a result they won’t be happy with last week and, knowing Jim Goodwin, I know they’ll be trying to respond to that. So again, we have to match the energy, the physicality that Dundee United have. They’re a huge threat from set plays and they’ve got good quality within their team as well. It’s going to be a tough game for us.

“We can only control ourselves. We can’t control anything out with that. So more to the point, we want to keep building on the three games unbeaten. We want to keep a little bit of momentum.

“There’ll be a big crowd there again so, certainly even if we were safe, we would still be going all out to win this game and playing the strongest team we believe possible to win the game because people pay good money to watch this game, and it doesn’t matter what situation you’re in in the season, you have to be 110% every single game and we certainly will try to be.

“I can’t speak for Dundee United. I can only speak for us. Obviously, at the start of the season, with European football as well, Aberdeen would have been expected to be a lot higher in the table. It hasn’t transpired unfortunately. It happens. And Europe has taken a toll in that, I believe, when I came in. And it’s something we have to deal with.

As I say, make sure we’re 100% safe and then we start looking to build, which we’re already trying to do, and change things and move things forward for the future."

The opposition

“I’ve played against Jim’s teams many times. They’re always very, very competitive. Jim’s a very competitive person, he’s coming back to his old club as well. So no, I don’t imagine it’ll be any less competitive. It’ll be a physical game. We have to match that physicality, which is something we haven’t done this season. We haven’t matched teams’ physicality and we have to. We have to make sure we pick a team that tries to do that and keep progressing forward.

Keep moving forward

“I think there’s been signs of improvement. We all know it’s not the finished article. But certainly, our reaction to giving the ball away, our press is much better, our build-up play, we should have been three or four nil up at half-time with some of the very good football and interplay. We have to keep building on that and moving forward."

Team news

“Emma (Gyamfi) will be back fully available for selection and Nicky Devlin has trained. We’ll decide today whether he can be involved. He certainly won’t be a starter. It’s been three months and maybe only three days training. So, we’ll look and see how he comes through this training session today.

“Mats is fully fit now, we believe. He’s had enough game time to certainly be challenging for a starting spot. Alexander Jensen might be a doubt. He picked up a niggle yesterday so, again, we’ll assess him today.

“Jack Milne is fine. Jack (going off at Livingston) was only cramp. Jack’s fine. Totally fine. He’s been playing very well as well. He’s come in for a little bit of criticism this season, Jack, before I came, but certainly with an arm around his shoulder he’s played very well in the last three or four games and we’re really pleased with him."

Summer transfers

“There’s always time (for players to change your mind) Somebody goes and scores six goals tomorrow or something, yeah, of course you can always change your mind.

“I don’t make rash decisions anymore. I used to do that when I was a younger manager. But you have to look and see what has gone wrong, see what’s right, not everything’s awful all the time, see what’s available in the transfer market first and foremost because you have to be able to replace players and attract players. And the market’s difficult at the best of times.

“We’ve got players under contract. So, the problems that we’ve had this season won’t be fixed in one window. It may take two, maybe three windows before we can maybe fix everything. But there’s still talented players here. It’s my job to make sure I surround them and compliment them with the right players.

“I’ve really concentrated on making sure we get out of the trouble that we’re in. We’ve done that to an extent. We’re not fully out of the woods yet and right now my concentration is very much on that.

“We’ve got good people at the football club now, that put about 500 names in front of me every day. We’re speaking about things. They’re speaking to agents and players and once we settle down we’ll pursue things a little bit further. But of course, they’ve been doing their work in the background.

“Some people are out of contract, so that’ll naturally happen. Other people, as I said, we’ve got big things still to play for and what will happen is we’ll look and see what’s available first and foremost. Can you get better in the building? Is it available right now before we make any rash decisions?

“Obviously I’ve got something in my mind that I want to do in terms of what the squad looks like and the squad makeup looks like at the moment.

“I don’t think there’s anybody who would argue that the balance of the squad isn’t right at this moment in time. We’ve got it better over the last four or five weeks, but obviously once we get totally safe then we can start making those decisions and having conversations with people on what we think and see them fitting in or not fitting in, so to speak, moving forward."

Focusing on being safe

“The objective is being fully safe. We need to beat Dundee United tomorrow to have a chance of finishing seventh. They will know that a result against us will probably secure them with the goal difference. So, there’s plenty still to play for. “As I say, when fans pay the money that they do, there’s always plenty to play for, whether you can move up the table or not. I like winning football matches and, by seeing me on the side-line, I’m sure you’ll believe that.

“I want to instil that into the football club. I want to create a culture of winning and losing isn’t something that is accepted easily, so certainly we’ll be doing our very best to finish as high as we can but also at the same time making sure of our safety."

Livingston Reflections

“They were disappointed not to take all three points on Friday. When you create that many chances, we should be out of sight. But when you’re playing against a team like Livingston that have that physical capacity and they have the power they have from set plays, we haven’t got that power, and we were always going to be vulnerable if you don’t take your chances.

“There’s never one person’s fault. It’s a combination of things. You take your chances and the decisions at the end don’t count because you maybe win the game 4-2. So as a collective we were disappointed, but I’m happy that we showed the fight and the reactions and some very, very good quality on the pitch as well. It’s probably a mix."

Toyosi Olusanya

“Toyosi Olusanya has come up here and he’s given the team something that they didn’t have before. He runs in behind, he causes absolute mayhem. If you look at the games, he wins the free-kick for Kevin’s goal against Livingston that no other player actually has the pace to catch. He gets the Hibs centre-half sent off and we win a penalty. He causes massive, massive problems.

“He needs a goal. He wants a goal, of course. You put an arm around him. He has to keep getting in those positions. The missed chances, if you’re getting into those chances then you’re making the right runs. Toy knows that he needs to add goals to his game.

“I think he’s complimented Kevin very well. I think Kevin’s form has been excellent since I came in, goal scoring, his hold-up play, his work ethic, and I think Toy’s played a big part in that."

Being in control of games

“I thought we had a lot of control on Friday night. But yeah, we need control. We’ve got better as the weeks have gone on in terms of gaining that control and our build-up play and our creativity.

“But of course, if you can keep possession of the ball then the opposition can’t score. It’s important. We’ve worked on lots of different things. As I say, the biggest threat from Dundee United, they’ve got very good players, but they put a lot of balls into the box. That’s a challenge. Has been a challenge all season and we’re looking for improvement on Saturday with that."

Back at Pittodrie

“Looking forward to it. We’re unbeaten at home so far, touch wood, and we want to continue that. We want to build momentum. We want the fans to see that there has been change. They can see the work ethic, the organisation of the team. You won’t always win games, that’s football, but there won’t ever be a question of work ethic of organisation.”