NK Maribor vs Aberdeen - Aberdeen boss Derek McInnes unfazed by flight delay ahead of Europa League tie

Posted Thursday, August 04, 2016 by PA

Aberdeen boss Derek McInnes has played down the disruption caused by another Europa League flight delay.

The Pittodrie squad had been due to depart Dyce airport at 1.30pm for the second leg of their third-round qualifier against Maribor in Slovenia, but as a result of an issue with the plane take off has been put back at least three hours.

The Dons experienced similar travel problems in the previous round on their trip to Latvia to play Ventspils.

However, McInnes, whose side were held to a 1-1 draw in the first leg, told the club's official website that the delay has made no material difference to his plans.

"We weren't planning on training at the stadium tonight anyway," he said.

"We wanted to be a bit more specific and train here this morning so there is no real change from that other than the players will arrive in Maribor a bit later, we will get to the hotel just in time for dinner.

"The plans tomorrow will be as normal so there is not any real change to our preparations, truth be told."

McInnes conceded that a much more serious issue was the deaths of two young Maribor players in a car accident on Tuesday.

A minute's silence will be held before the match for Damjan Marjanovic and Zoran Baljak.

"Firstly it is awful news," said the Aberdeen manager.

"We heard yesterday and our deepest sympathies go towards everyone involved at the club and the families especially.

"You try to put it into perspective. What if that had been a 19 or 20-year-old from our club?

"You start to identify who those players could be and how close they are to the first-team players. So there is no doubt that it's awful, awful news for Maribor and their players obviously.

"You never know how they react to that, but at the minute in a football sense it is secondary. It is just awful news that we don't really want to be talking about, but very sadly it's happened."

McInnes, who confirmed Ugandan trialist Khalid Aucho will not be offered a deal, revealed a postponement has not been mooted.

He said: "We'd obviously respect whatever was the right thing to do, but that has never been indicated to us.

"If that was the case we would have respected that, but we plan to go as normal.

"We look forward to the game, but I do think the tragic news that we heard yesterday has affected Maribor and ourselves in the build-up to it and it's unfortunate, really unfortunate and very very sad."