Barry Robson was left frustrated after the Dons lost out to BK Häcken in a tie that they might just as easily have won.

“It was a brilliant performance from the players tonight, I was so pleased with them. Häcken are a top team, but we were so brave against them and over the two legs, with the chances we created, I believe we should have gone through. We had a proper go at them and we didn’t get the rewards. I’m just frustrated because we missed a few chances. The players are gutted because they know they could have won the tie.

“Häcken are the type of team that wherever they go, they usually have 75% possession. We didn’t want to just sit in against that, we wanted to have a real go, and we did that in both legs.

“We’re built on a structure, but we’re still trying to find that cohesion because we’ve had to build a new team this summer. You could see tonight that Jensen, McGarry and McGrath are good players, good signings, but they’ve not been here long. We had to take McGarry off, he was starting to feel it and we don’t want to see him out for six weeks, McGrath’s not played for ages, so we’re getting players up to speed while trying to win football matches against proper teams. That’s not easy.

“We created a multitude of brilliant chances, one-on-ones, and that’s credit to the way the boys played, how they passed the ball at times, the speed they played at, the way they pressed. I thought that we were a good side to watch tonight, as we were over there. When you create that number of chances, more often than not, you will win games, but it didn’t go our way this time.”

The Dons will now go into the group stages of the UEFA Conference League, the draw for which takes place on Friday, and which will pit Aberdeen against some top European sides, a prospect the manager relishes.

“It’s great that we are in the Conference League, it’s a great competition and we worked really hard last season to earn the chance to play in the group stages. It was a big effort from everybody connected with the club to do that. We’re frustrated tonight because we felt we could have gone into the Europa League but we’ll look forward to the Conference League when it starts next month.”