Nicky Devlin was the goalscoring hero for the Dons in Gothenburg, his superb finish giving the Dons a 2-2 draw after a superb second half comeback.
“I thought we deserved what we got tonight. You can see this team will always create chances, we always feel like we’re in games. Two goals down away from home in Europe isn’t a great situation to be in, but we’ve gone from being in a sticky situation to having it all to play for in the second leg.
“Wherever we play, we want to make sure teams know they’re in a game, that’s how the manager wants to play and that’s the nature of the players he’s recruited. We want to be on the front foot, we want teams to know they’re up against it and we managed to do that tonight, even in the first half, we had good chances to punish them.
“I was frustrated a couple of weeks ago when my mistake cost us against Celtic, so I owed everyone a moment like that. You can’t let a mistake like that affect you, you can’t switch off and the rest of the boys, the way they reacted to it was great, I’ve never had that before, everybody telling me to forget it and carry on.
“There’s a real camaraderie here, the manager has tried to build that and with boys like Graeme Shinnie and Jonny Hayes in the dressing room, that’s what you’ll get! We come from lots of different backgrounds but everyone has bought into it and that really helps when you’re in a difficult situation like tonight.
“The squad is getting stronger and I thought the subs were tremendous when they came on. We’re going to need everybody, that’s clear with the number of games we’re going to have, but everybody wants to contribute.
“I don’t think I’ve ever scored such an important goal. It was good contribute at that end of the park, we changed my position and the onus was on me to get forward and try and create or score goals. It was a proud moment. My mum and dad were here tonight, so I’m sure they enjoyed it! It was a nice finish – if Bojan had done that, he’d be talking about it for weeks! His pass, the weight and the timing of it, was perfect and I was able to run onto it and finish.
“Games like tonight, games like the one coming up next Thursday, that’s why players want to come here. I’m sure Pittodrie will be a full house now, similar to Celtic, and we need to give them a performance. I thought the fans were tremendous tonight, they helped get us over the line when we needed them, and we responded to them. It will have to be the same next week. We’ve still got a lot of work to do against a dangerous side that can score goals.”
