Kenneth confident despite defeat

Dundee United defender Garry Kenneth thinks his side still have a great chance to progress into the Europa League group stages. The Scotland international was unable to prevent his side going down 1-0 at home to AEK Athens but he believes it would be foolish to write off the Dundee side's chances of progressing."Is that us out the tie? Not a chance," he said."I think we still have a great chance of going through. We will go there to pass the ball and try to sneak a goal."I think we gave them too much respect in the first 15 minutes and we never passed the ball like we usually do."The occasion may have got to the team as a whole at the start but we got to half time only 1-0 down, knowing we hadn't played well."We had to go out and have a go in the second half and I thought we did that. I actually thought we were the better team."I think they only had two shots on target the whole night and scored with one of them."Kenneth featured for Craig Levein's Scotland in their 3-0 friendly defeat to Sweden earlier this month and the defender felt that helped him adjust to the demands of European football."Playing in Europe is completely different than playing for Scotland but getting that experience for Scotland just before this game has benefited me," he said."However nothing can really prepare you for going from domestic level to European level."I think all of the lads will have learned a lot from the match. We had chances and sometimes instead of taking a shot we were looking for the killer pass."We go over there still with a great chance of going through. One goal could take us into extra time and then you never know what can happen."As long as we shut the door then I think we have a chance."The 23-year-old said he is looking forward to playing in AEK Athens' notoriously hostile Olympic Stadium when the sides meet in the return leg in Greece next week.He added: "I don't think I have ever played in such a hostile place as Athens is supposed to be. I have played against some great teams though and I'm sure this will be another good experience for me."It will be a massive game and we need to go there and give it our best shot."AEK Athens manager Dusan Bajevic believes his side should have won by an even greater margin after Rafik Djebbour scored the only goal of the game in the 11th minute."The early goal gave us a boost but after that we created two or three chances and we could have scored more," he said."However, I didn't think it was a very comfortable victory as Dundee United were strong and tried until the last minute."

Source: Team_Talk