Stephen Kenny: Horgan's goal warranted a result

Dundalk manager Stephen Kenny remains upbeat about his side’s chances of qualifying for the last-32 of the Europa League despite losing 2-1 to Zenit St. Petersburg last night.

“We have the lowest co-efficient, are the lowest ranked side in the Europa League so I think AZ and Maccabi would have expected to beat us, but the fact that they didn’t and the fact that they need to beat us to qualify will make the games difficult,” Kenny said.

“But we believe in ourselves and we feel that we are improving all the time and learning more about European football with every game that we play so our progress is very evident. We seem to score no matter where we go so that’s what we have the potential to do.

“People are really tuning into the team, getting behind the team and enjoying watching Dundalk in Europe. We’re always in the shadow of the English teams but we’re emerging as a team who are forging their own identity on the European stage and a team which people are relating to across Europe.

“They see a team with very small resources overcoming the odds in coming up against some of the great European teams and matching them. The journey doesn’t have to stop over the next couple of games and we still feel that we can qualify for the last-32,” the Dundalk manager claimed.

It is the Lilywhites’ second defeat to the Russian giants in the space of 14-days. Attacker Giuliano scored a brace to help Zenit to the 2-1 win at the Petrovsky Stadium last night and Kenny concedes that the better team prevailed.

Kenny told the press conference: “We understand that Zenit were the better team on the day and to say that they deserved the win is unquestionable, but Daryl Horgan’s goal was such an exceptional goal it deserved to get a result.

“Then when we went 2-1 behind and Patrick McEleney’s effort hit the bar and then the post. It would have been a terrific moment for us to equalise with the game nearly up.”

McEleney’s effort was one of two occasions that the Lilywhites tested the woodwork with John Mountney seeing a cross-come-shot deflect off the post inside 15 minutes. This is all the more agonising when you think of how Dane Massey also hit the upright in their last meeting, which also ended in a 2-1 win for Zenit.

“We hit the woodwork twice tonight. In both games the woodwork has denied us at crucial times so that’s the way it went and for us to get a result against Zenit we probably need everything to go for us so it was unfortunate and we’re disappointed but we can take encouragement from the performance.

“We have two games left and it’s still in our own hands. AZ still have to come to Dublin in the next few weeks and then we have to go to Maccabi. It looks like it will go down to the last game and the margins are very narrow so we’ll just have to wait and see,” Kenny added.

Had the Lilywhites gotten something from the game on Thursday it would have rounded off a special week for the club having seen two of their players named in Martin O’Neill Irish international squad. One of those chosen, Daryl Horgan scored Dundalk’s equaliser after 52 minutes, Kenny admitted that it was a special goal.

“Being a wide player, he found himself in a central position latching onto the ball. He showed great skill and composure to set himself and he finished, it was probably worthy of getting something from the game.”

Before concluding for the night, the Dubliner put the task that Dundalk were presented with into perspective when pitted against Zenit, before reserving some special words of praise for their Belgian midfielder Axel Witsel.

“Zenit are a fantastic team. The fact that they won the Champions League group with Valencia, Lyon and Gent last season shows their quality. Obviously, they’re going to win our group, but my only hope is that they don’t take their foot off the gas because they are capable of taking maximum points from the group.

“The only weakness that they have is that they don’t have two Axel Witsels. I knew that he was a good player and when I studied the videos of Zenit, Witsel plays everywhere. He seems to have everything – he works hard, he can pass, he can dribble, he can create goals and he can score goals. He seems to have an all-around game for a midfielder.”

Dundalk now sit third in Group D on four-points, level with Maccabi Tel-Aviv and two ahead of AZ.