Derek McInnes full of Kilmarnock belief as he aims for transfer headache with European payday
Derek McInnes knows Kilmarnock will need to be at their Rugby Park best if they are to have any chance of coming back against Copenhagen.
Killie are 2-0 down and will need to produce one of the biggest results in their history if they want to turn things around tomorrow and make the group stage of the Europa Conference League for the first time. McInnes expects Rugby Park to be rocking and hopes his team add to the occasion.
The manager said: “It’ll be busy. It will be a huge crowd going in at Rugby Park, the type of games they’ll want to be involved in. The players earned that from last season and I still think we’re in it. I don’t think many people believe we are in it, with that second goal going in, in the last nine seconds. But we’re going to have to deliver some of our best, no doubt about that.”
Kilmarnock are playing catch-up and McInnes is well aware the first goal tomorrow night will be vital. He still feels a sense of injustice from the 2-0 defeat in Denmark.
He said: “Yeah, I was pleased with a lot, obviously the first leg in Copenhagen against a team from the Champions League last year. You can see, it’s not as if you’re drawing a line in the sand and just defending.
“We went with two strikers over there and we tried to impose ourselves and we did have a couple of chances, arguably the best chance of the first half. But the nature of the opponent forces them on you and you had to defend manfully and I thought we did that well.
“The second leg will be a different type of game, we’ll have to try to get the first goal as quickly as possible, so it will be a slightly different approach. A team full of internationals started against us last week and although they’ve not started brilliantly domestically, they’re