Barry Robson explains why 'brilliant' Aberdeen should have gone through against Hacken

Aberdeen manager Barry Robson looks on at full time following the defeat by BK Hacken.

Aberdeen manager Barry Robson believes his side deserved to progress to the Europa League group stages despite being undone by a super motivated Ibrahim Sadiq.

The BK Hacken winger promised to give his side and their fans a performance to remember before departing for AZ Alkmaar in a £3.5 million transfer. He did all this and more, scoring twice and then winning the penalty from which Amor Layouni secured the Swedes’ 5-3 aggregate victory. Sadiq also hit the post.

Hacken won 3-1 on the night but Robson argued they had managed this with “one counter-attack and a wonder goal” on a dramatic night at Pittodrie. Despite the manager’s assessment, Aberdeen drop into the Conference League – where they could meet Sadiq again. AZ Alkmaar are also in the draw. The Dons will have to be more ruthless with their finishing if they are to impose themselves in that competition. The hosts took the game to Hacken on occasion but missed several good chances – twice when one-one-one with the ‘keeper Peter Abrahamsson. Hacken could also have scored more on a topsy-turvy evening in front of a noisy home crowd.

“What a brilliant performance from my players, I was so pleased with them,” said Robson. “Hacken are a top team, everyone saw the front players they have. I believe over the two legs we should have gone through with the amount of chances we created. Duk was one-on-one and Bojan [Miovski] was too. Great chances. Hacken created chances too, don’t get me wrong. But we created loads and it’s frustrating. The way we passed, the way we pressed and the way we ran, the speed – I thought we were a great watch out there. When you go in against a team like that who normally have 75 per cent of possession, they had one counter attack and a wondergoal.

“We don’t want to sit here and sit in, we wanted to have a real go and you can see over the two legs how we performed,” he added. “When we come against top teams we are not going to go gung-ho and lose loads of goals, we're built on structure. You have to get that structure and cohesion. I'm not naive enough to think you don't need the defensive side of the game. We didn't want to sit in tonight and I felt we did enough to go through but they will probably say the same. We got the job done of getting to the Conference League and it’s going to be great for the club and the city.”