Glass: Stylish start from Aberdeen down to hard work

Aberdeen manager Stephen Glass says hard work paid off for his side as they powered to a 5-1 victory over Hacken in their first competitive game of the season.

A double from Lewis Ferguson, as well as goals from Andy Considine, Christian Ramirez and Connor McLellan gave the Dons a healthy lead from the first leg of the Europa Conference League qualifying tie.

Glass was delighted with the performance he saw from his team after weeks of preparation, and believes the result is better than he could have reasonably hoped for.

“If we were being greedy we wouldn’t have lost a goal but I think when you ask the players for a performance before the game and they produce that, I don’t think there’s any complaints,” he said.

“The work rate that they’ve put in for the last five weeks – the players got their reward for that.

“And it’s the work that they’ve put in. You can set things up and you can push them but they have to do the work. I think you see the results of how they’ve been prepared.

“That’s what you’re hoping for at the end of the night, that you come off the pitch with a victory. It’s probably a bigger margin than what we could have imagined against what, I want to reiterate, is a very good Hacken team. They’re full of good players, full of dangerous players and with a clever manager who’s been around a lot longer than I have.

“It’s a great victory and everyone’s delighted. It’s a good night for the club.”

Glass fielded several of his summer signings in a new-look team, with Jay Emanuel-Thomas linking with Ramirez to good effect. The manager was pleased to see relationships developing on the park but refused to get too carried away from one game.

“Good players bounce off each other,” he said. “They react well to each other. They all did their bit for the team, which was the first thing I asked of them.

“I think when good players do that and they’ve got the ball and they’re dominating possession then good things can happen.

“But it’s important we don’t get carried away. We know it’s one game and I know that they would like nothing more than to turn it around so it’s important that we do our jobs right.

“We’ve got a lot to look forward to but we’ve got a lot to be prepared for.”