Derek McInnes: Proud of Aberdeen’s European bid

Derek McInnes’ side will attempt to overturn a 2-1 deficit against their Kazakhstan opponents on Thursday, and Jack is relishing the task. “That was the longest ten minutes of my life”, he said.

ABERDEEN will have a 20,000 packed Pittodrie to roar them on against Almaty tonight. “At some point when we’ve hopefully been successful, somebody says to me “maybe the best thing that happened was that you put out of Europe early”.

“The first goal was so important, and we got caught running the ball in the wrong area”. They had a lot of yellow cards, especially first half.

“We lacked a bit of quality in the final third but in terms of getting at them and intelligence of play there was a lot of encouragement going forward”. They will be unseeded for the play-off round should they manage to overcome FC Kairat this evening, which would mean another tough draw.

McInnes’ men quickly settled and after Niall McGinn’s shot was kept out, they felt they should have had a penalty when Peter Pawlett tumbled in the box.

Ward came in on a season-long loan from Liverpool in the summer and has, at this stage, established himself as the Dons’ no. 1 with the natural confidence he’s got in his own ability helpful anyway, but the more games he plays the more this grows and the better he’s becoming.

“The intensity was there and the players deserve a lot of credit for that”. “Aberdeen are a good strong team and they caused problems in the air”.

“My team’s improving. We’ve got a right good squad, we’ve got loads to be encouraged by, loads of optimism”.

McInnes, of course, went on to thank Brendan Rodgers once again for this loan and feels the fact Liverpool did loan the Welsh worldwide to us shows the faith he has in our ability as a club too.

But Kenny McLean’s vital away goal gives them hope ahead of Thursday’s return and Jack can not wait to sample the electric atmosphere in a sold-out Pittodrie.

‘We’ve been close (to a capacity crowd) with the games against Sociedad and Celtic but it will be great to have a sell-out, ‘ McInnes told Sportsmail.