ALKMAAR STRIKER ASKS GIAKOUMAKIS TO HELP END JINX
AZ Alkmaar striker Vangelis Pavlidis is determined to bring his poor record against Scottish clubs to an end when the Dutch club host Dundee United this evening. The 23-year-old was part of the AZ side knocked out of the Europa League by Celtic last season, having previously lost out to Rangers when featuring for Willem II in 2019. The Greek international was on the losing side again when AZ were defeated 1-0 by United at Tannadice last Thursday in the first leg of the Europa Conference League third round qualifier. Revealing that he has spoken to Celtic striker and compatriot Giorgos Giakoumakis about the threats United pose, Pavlidis said: ‘I don’t have good results against Scottish teams but we need to change that. ‘I asked Giorgos Giakoumakis about Dundee United because I wanted to prepare myself for the game. I spoke to him before the first leg but now we have played them, so we know more and are focused. ‘He explained a few things to us, which was good. I didn’t enjoy the physical aspect as much because we lost. But we have showed before that we can change these scores around and it wasn’t surprising how Dundee United played — we knew it would be difficult. ‘Tomorrow will be a big difference compared to last week. There’s no extra pressure on us, we have good enough players to score goals and that’s what we want to do. ‘Of course we haven’t thought about going out. We are only thinking about winning — we are a big club who have to play in Europe. ‘Our status is to be there, we don’t want to be outside of it, so we have to give everything.’ Jack Ross’ side ran out 1-0 winners in the first leg thanks to Glenn Middleton’s secondhalf strike, and AZ manager Pascal Jansen was asked if it was possible that they had underestimated United. ‘Not at all,’ he replied, ‘not for one second because we simply wouldn’t allow that and the same goes for all the staff. ‘We are very confident we’ll get the job done but football is football. ‘We are under no more pressure than usual because you have to fight for a spot in Europe always. ‘We did that last season and we did it against Tuzla of Bosnia, winning 1-0 in the first game then winning away from home in the second leg. ‘We will give it all we have, with spirit, passion and fighting — but we will also be better with our own game to create the chances we need to get things done. ‘Dundee United will give us a big battle, so we have worked on our game plan from last week.’