ABERDEEN DON’T WANT TO BE LEFT CURSING THEIR LUCK IN CYPRUS
FOR ABERDEEN, the third qualifying round of the Europa League represents a glass ceiling. Yet two of their exits at this stage in the last three years have left Derek McInnes wanting to bang his head against a brick wall.
While a 5-2 aggregate defeat to the classy Spaniards Real Sociedad in 2014 was a fair result, narrow exits to Kairat Almaty in 2015 and Maribor in 2016 still rankle with the Dons boss.
And out here in sweltering Cyprus, McInnes is adamant that after winning the home leg against Apollon Limassol 2-1, his Dons won’t return home cursing yet another slice of ill-fortune or poor finishing.
‘I don’t want us to be an unlucky story,’ said McInnes ahead of tonight’s second-leg match held in Larnaca due to safety issues at Apollon’s Tsirio Stadium.
‘Our performances have been very good at this stage of the competition but that counts for nothing in cup football when you are knocked out. We missed a penalty early in the first half over in Maribor last year, which was the defining moment last season.
‘Then we got Jayden Stockley sent off in the match, which was very harsh, and (if he had stayed on) it could have made things go our way.
‘We just want to find a way to stay in this tournament and hopefully we can do that in what will be a tough match against a good team.
‘That’s something we have to deal with but we will be confident that we can qualify this time by showing that we are better this year.
‘We view this game like a semifinal and we want to get to the final to give ourselves a chance of taking part in the play-off round.
‘There is a big obstacle in our way but hopefully we can find a way to overcome Apollon Limassol and get through this time.’
If Aberdeen are to progress they will need to dispose of an ultraattacking team that tend to score an average of two goals per game.
But McInnes is confident that his Dons are well-equipped up front, despite the absence through injury of top scorer Adam Rooney, to handle the mental and physical strains of a big European away night.
McInnes said: ‘We have options. Ideally we’d have liked to have had Adam Rooney with us, but you have to deal with losing players to injury. ‘We are very comfortable playing away from home. We have had some of our best results playing away in the Europa League. We won in Groningen, Rijeka and two weeks ago in Bosnia against Siroki Brijeg. ‘Obviously the conditions here will be a factor but we have proved we can deal with that and hopefully we will again. ‘We are well aware of Apollon Limassol’s attacking threat. But we are also a team that is more than capable of scoring. ‘We feel our record, home and away, domestically and in Europe, shows we are a team with similar capabilities.
‘We never go into a game not trying to score. You could say it was more simplistic in Bosnia because we drew the first game 1-1 and we needed to score or we were out.
‘But we feel there is still work to be done and we will try and play our normal game.’
McInnes also explained his decision to train his squad at Pittodrie yesterday rather than in the baking heat of the AEK Arena in Larnaca.
‘We were reluctant to do too much out here at the stadium because it’s not private, so it’s almost like a wasted training session,’ he said.
‘Given the temperature, and the length of the journey to Cyprus we felt it was best that the players come here, familiarise themselves with the stadium then go back to the hotel and rest up.
‘But all the work has been done. We have fully prepared.’
Apollon boss Sofronis Avgousti, meanwhile, is backing his side to dump the Dons out of Europe tonight thanks to grabbing a vital away goal at Pittodrie.
‘We believe that our team is going to make it through to the next round,’ said Avgousti, who is banned from the dugout tonight after being sent to the stand at Pittodrie.
‘The away goal in Aberdeen was really important for us. It was also important that we kept the score down to 2-1 when we had a man sent off in Scotland.
‘We feel we still have a good chance of making it through. We remain positive and we are focused on winning.’