STEPHEN Glass is perhaps stating the obvious when he says there is no need to go chasing goals when his Aberdeen side face BK Hacken in Gothenburg on Thursday night, but he insists they will not be satisfied simply to sit on their 5-1 win from the first leg of the Europa League Conference tie at Pittodrie.
Dons’ fans’ forums lit up with excitement after their heroes produced an enthralling 90 minutes with a swashbuckling display the manager hopes will be a template for what’s to come this season.
The supporters had become weary of the lack of goals from their team last season when they managed just 33 in 38 league fixtures and a goals deficit of 2, and Glass was tasked by chairman Dave Cormack to inject some much-needed pizzazz into performances; season tickets had to be shifted.
“That is what we are hoping to reproduce on a weekly basis,” said Glass. “I am not crazy enough to say we will score five goals every game, although I would love to.
“We will try to do the right things and try to play like that. However, we will come up against opponents who don’t open up as much as Hacken did and don’t come forward as much.
“I came into the game knowing that if it was slow and stale I knew what would get aimed at us.
“It is all down to the players. You can put them into positions, you can make demands of them, you can try to show them where you want them and what it takes, but they are the ones who have to execute it and they did that. To me that is the over-riding factor, that the players produced.”
Glass, boosted by the reaction of the near-6,000 fans in the ground last Thursday and how it lifted his players, was thrilled at how well the strike partnership of news signings Jay Emmanuel-Thomas and US international Christian Ramirez worked.
The latter hit one of Aberdeen’s five goals and with he and Emmanuel-Thomas both powerful and athletic, the manager believes they will trouble opposing defences.
“Good players bounce off one another,” he said, “and they react well to each other. But everyone did their bit for the team as well which was the first thing I asked of them. When good players do that and have the ball and are dominating the bulk of possession, especially the first half, good things can happen.”
Glass also expressed pleasure at how teenage full-back Calvin Ramsay, who will celebrate his eighteenth birthday on Saturday, the eve of Aberdeen’s Premiership opener at home to Dundee United, performed against Hacken.
Ramsay may have been thrown-in at the deep end against the Swedish outfit but he emerged with flying colours to stake his claim for a starting place in the Bravida Arena in Gothenburg on Thursday.
“He is a young player but we put faith in him to play tonight,” said Glass. “he was under no illusions that this was a big game for us as a club.
“For the staff, we asked if we had picked the right team, for the first leg; had we prepared right? So, we put a 17 year old in the team and he was brilliant.
“The message at this club has always been that if you are good enough you are old enough and will be given an opportunity, but they have to earn it.
“Connor McLennan came on and got his goal and he’s another academy product. It is good that young players can see a pathway to get into the first team and that there is a management here that will put them in if they are deserving of the opportunity.”
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