Barry Robson rubbishes Aberdeen dead rubber theory as boss lays out 2 incentives to beat HJK

Aberdeen boss Barry Robson has rubbished any notion of their Europa Conference League clash with HJK being a dead rubber.

The pair can no longer qualify from Group G but Robson has insisted his team will be aiming for the three points to give their 1,528 travelling Red Army something to cheer about. Robson also wants that first European win for his players and there is still plenty of cash to play for with £435,000 on offer for a group stage victory.

Robson stated: “Try telling 1500 fans who are coming over it is a dead rubber. It isn’t. We are playing for Aberdeen Football Club in Europe against a very strong team. We have 1,500 fans coming and they are hugely important to us. So we want to put on a good performance for them. The frustration is that from the performances we have put in Europe I don’t think we are sitting on the points we deserve.

“It (that first win) is really important. We spoke about that as a squad and players. The first game against Helsinki we were really good and then hit by the sucker punch against PAOK.

"The first game against Helsinki we were really good and we were hit with a sucker punch in PAOK and could have got a result in Frankfurt. We have gone toe-to-toe with a lot of big teams with big finances and gave them a real go.”

It is predicted to go as low as -14 in terms of windchill tonight and is on an artificial surface but Robson reckons Aberdeen are more than acclimatised for both. He said: “If I’m going to be honest I did a match prep at Cormack Park this morning and I think that would have been minus three or four with the wind coming in.

“I don’t think it will be anything different to what we are used to. We have to play on artificial surfaces when we are in Scotland at Kilmarnock