Barry Robson insists he's determined to go all out to get Aberdeen's first European win this season in freezing Finland despite it being a dead rubber match.

The Dons face HJK Helsinki in their penultimate Europa Conference League game where the temperature is set to be -6 with snow showers and a wind chill factor plummeting it down to feel like -14.

Aberdeen's European campaign has been a catalogue of what-ifs and hard luck stories this season after blowing a two-goal lead against PAOK, narrowly losing out 2-1 at Eintracht Frankfurt and claiming a draw in Greece.

But both the Pittodrie side and HJK are already out of Europe although the not-inconsiderable reward of £435,000 for a win is plenty of an incentive.

And the fact that 1,528 Aberdeen fans will brace the freezing conditions to cheer their side on means Robson will treat this game as vital.

He said: "Try telling the 1,500 fans who are coming over it is a dead rubber.

“It isn’t. We are playing for Aberdeen Football Club in Europe against a very strong team.

"It's massive as we have those fans coming and they are hugely important to us. So we want to put on a good performance for them.

"The frustration is that from the performances we have put in Europe, I don’t think we are sitting on the points we deserve. We deserve to be on more points than we have got.

"It is really important to get that first win. We spoke about that as a squad and players. The first game against Helsinki we were really good and then hit by the sucker punch against PAOK.

"The first game against Helsinki we were really good and we were hit with a sucker punch against PAOK. And could have got a result in Frankfurt.

"We have gone toe to toe with a lot of big teams with big finances and gave them a real go.

"We are trying our best as a club. We had a big rebuild in the summer. Some players have played at this level and some have not. We have learned a lot from playing in European games. The more you play in Europe the better you get and that is what we have done."

And Robson won't use the arctic conditions at the BOLT Arena as an excuse.

He insisted: "If I’m going to be honest I did a match prep at Cormack Park this morning and I think that would have been -3 or -4 with the wind coming in. I don’t think it will be anything different to what we are used to."

Aberdeen's Finnish international defender Richard Jensen is returning home after playing for HJK Helsinki as a kid before moving abroad to Twente Enschede 11 years ago.

He signed for the Dons from Polish side Gornik Zabrze in the summer and has been a key player for Robson's side.

But he admits he's been frustrated at Aberdeen's failure to win any of their six European games this season, including the four in the Europa Conference League and two in the Europa League play-off against Swedish champions Hacken.

He said: "It has been sickening, we have had some incredible performances but haven’t really got the results we perhaps deserved.

“Have we lacked luck? I don’t know, luck - you sometimes have it and sometimes you don’t so I can’t say much more about that.

“We did our best but just didn’t succeed, we should have done something perhaps slightly differently to avoid that, but it didn’t happen.  Now we’re trying to get our first win.

“We have learned from this experience, definitely. You are seeing us grow from week to week, we are starting to perform as a good team and we’re showing that.

“I think we’re showing it internationally, domestically and in the cup as well.

"Every three or four days we’re out there on the pitch doing what we need to do, we’re showing good character doing the things we need to do."

Jensen was on the bench as Finland crushed Northern Ireland 4-0 in a Euro 2024 qualifier the other week. And he has plenty of respect for his old club.

He said: "The HJK manager sent me a video of the snowy pitch, it was just a healthy bit of banter.  It’s nice to come back.

"I represented HJK before I left for my career abroad, I got my skills here so I am very proud and grateful for what they gave me here. But there is no extra-special win here compared to anywhere else, they are all just as important.

"The Finns won’t like the cold either so it’s not an advantage. There’s no extra special meaning to a win here than it would be somewhere else.

"HJK are a very skillful and disciplined team, we saw that in the first game. We had a good game against them and I think we had enough chances to beat them."