Barry Robson knows Aberdeen need to be at their best to match PAOK

Barry Robson believes Aberdeen need to be “close to perfection” to have a chance against PAOK at Pittodrie on Thursday night.

The Greek side have beaten HJK Helsinki away and Eintracht Frankfurt at home to sit at the top of their Europa Conference League Group G.

The Dons are at the bottom with one point after a 1-1 draw with HJK at home followed a 2-1 defeat in Frankfurt.

Aberdeen boss Robson acknowledged the task ahead against a side who beat cinch Premiership rivals Hearts 6-1 on aggregate in the play-off round.

“They are a top side, we all know that, everybody knows that,” said Robson, who will be without Shayden Morris and James McGarry.

“We have done a lot of video analysis on them. We’ve seen the quality when they played at Tynecastle and when Hearts went away and they are full of quality all over the pitch.

“But we are at home and we’ve got an opportunity to try and put our stamp on the game.

“And I think our performances in Europe have been good, although I don’t think we got the results our performances probably deserved.

“They are strong all over the pitch, we know what qualities they have and where they can hurt us but we can also know where we can hurt them.

“We need to make it as close to a perfect performance as we can and if we do that with the fans behind us we have a chance.

“I have watched them over a few games. I watched them against Frankfurt. Frankfurt could have scored a few goals against them, the same with Helsinki.

“They will come at us at times, sometimes they will drop off the game as well and they have real speed on transition. They do a lot of that so that’s something we need to be aware of as well.

“We know the quality we are coming up against. But we are at home, we have an opportunity here, the fans want us to try to cause an upset because it would be an upset.

“We know the financial side of the clubs and these types of things but we are an underdog in the game and that I like sometimes for us, the players like that and we want to bring our best performance and if we do that we’ve got a chance, a real chance.”