2023-24 UEFA Europa Conference League: Group Stage – Aberdeen vs Helsinki

Aberdeen meet Helsinki at Pittodrie in Group G of 2023-24 UEFA Europa Conference League.

Sat bottom of Group G, victory could see either Aberdeen or Helsinki climb up to second in the group unless PAOK and Eintracht Frankfurt draw elsewhere.

 

Team News

Aberdeen have no fresh injury concerns to report after their 3-1 Scottish Premiership win at Rangers last weekend.

James McGarry and Shayden Morris are both sidelined with hamstring injuries until November.

Helsinki will be without goalkeeper, Niki Maenpaa due to an unspecified injury.

 

When is Kick-Off?

Aberdeen host Helsinki at Pittodrie on Thursday 5 October in a 8pm BST kick-off, live on TNT Sport 3 in the UK.

 

Stat Attack

• This is Aberdeen’s first-ever meeting against Helsinki in all UEFA competitions.
• Helsinki are playing away to Aberdeen for the first time in their history.
• Aberdeen won their two previous meetings against Finnish opposition in all UEFA competitions, having beaten RoPS 2-1 in both legs of their First Qualifying Round in 2019-20 Europa League.
• Two of Aberdeen’s four goals have been scored by Bojan Miovski.
• Helsinki have failed to win any of their four away games in all UEFA competitions this season (D1, L3).

 

Prediction

Having unluckily not snatched a draw in their opening group game at Frankfurt, Aberdeen seemed to take their lessons from that game and have applied them domestically with three fantastically ruthless performances – including against Rangers in a morale-boosting result.

Their task now has to be continue applying their improved gameplay especially in front of what should be a lively home crowd, because a win here on top of that result against Rangers could be the springboard that they need to fight for a knockout spot going forward.

Helsinki however are a strong attacking team who won’t make life easy but their away record in Europe this season has been poor, but they nevertheless can’t be underestimated at their peril such is their threat up front.

My gut feeling though is that Aberdeen can certainly win this game if they play with the same quality which has seen them win three on the bounce coming into this game.

Prediction: Aberdeen 2-1 Helsinki

Result: Aberdeen 1-1 Helsinki