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EUROPA LEAGUE: Top five talking points - Determined Dundalk do Ireland proud as United and Saints need to tinker

1) Dundalk are doing their fans proud in Europe

Irish side Dundalk do not have the best track record in Europe, something their own supporters would begrudgingly point out. This season, however, they seem reborn.

After flunking out at the second qualifying round stage in the 2010 and 2014 Europa League editions, they defeated FH, Bate Borisov and Legia Warsaw to book a group against Zenit, AZ Alkmaar and Maccabi Tel Aviv.

A hard-fought 1-1 draw on the road in Holland to AZ, after going down to 10 men, illustrated they would not be content as the group whipping boys.

Ciaran Kilduff’s late goal energised the team and they have followed up with a superb home win against the Israelis, thanks to feisty forward Kilduff again, to record Ireland’s first ever win in the competition.

The visit of Zenit will be an altogether harder proposition, Mircea Lucescu’s side champions in this tournament as recently as 2008. Nevertheless, Stephen Kenny’s team will battle hard to confound sceptics again.

2) Mourinho can’t continue to field strong teams

If Jose Mourinho wants to stand any chance of Manchester United figuring in the Premier League title race this season, he will have to start resting key players on Thursday nights.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave this past month, it is clear to see that new signing Zlatan Ibrahimovic and young star Marcus Rashford are the two players capable of lifting the Old Trafford side above the ordinary.

The Swede, who has won trophies for fun around Europe for nearer two decades than one now, had to come to the rescue again against lowly Ukrainian side Zorya in the 1-0 win while England international Rashford played the 90.

Allied to the fact that Paul Pogba, Eric Bailly and Jesse Lingard also started and it appears Mourinho is making a rod for his own back.

Spurs have found to their cost in recent seasons the price of playing their stars continually in Europe, so United fans will be hoping Mourinho does not make a habit of it despite the need for a group victory after the opening defeat to Feyenoord in Holland.

3) Super Mario can’t win games on his own for Nice

Nice have profited from a judicious piece of business so far this season, after they took a leap of faith on European bad boy Mario Balotelli during the summer.

As we saw in the Premier League at times, together with Italy during major tournaments, Balotelli is capable of wondrous moments when his head is screwed on right.

Unfortunately for Liverpool and Milan in his second spell there, he hasn’t shown much of that in the last couple of years.

Nice, though, seems to suit his unpredictable nature. Maybe it’s the big fish in the small pond mentality that suits him, maybe not. Either way, he’s scoring goals for fun with another one to his name against Krasnodar.

The hosts, though, banged five past Yoan Cardinale in the Nice goal so Balotelli’s first-half goal meant little in an eventual 5-2 defeat. Another away trip in Salzburg gives his team-mates a chance to raise their game to his level.

4) Mainz could end up as the sleeper team this season

Mainz have become regular fixtures in the German league back home and produced a solid campaign to finish sixth last year to grab their Europa place.

Coach Martin Schmidt has settled in well to the dugout since he replaced the sacked Kasper Hjulmand last February and he looks capable of leading them deep in this year’s competition.

They could only manage a 1-1 draw in their first group match against St Etienne, but they fared much better on the road to Gabala in Baku second time around even if their defence looked a tad too leaky during the 3-2 win.

Japanese international Yoshinori Muto was the class act with Colombian Jhon Cordoba and German U21 international Levin Öztunalı also on the scoresheet.

If these three players can remain potent in front of goal and Spurs target Yunus Malli continues to pull the strings behind, then they could definitely go far.

5) Saints need to learn how to win on the road

Southampton have only triumphed in one of their last seven European away games, which does not bode well for a strong run in this season’s Europa League competition.

Even though Hapoel Beer Sheva had won all five of their previous home games so far this campaign, the Premier League outfit were expected to perform more brightly than the 0-0 draw.

It was clear from the outset that they missed Charlie Austin up front, Shane Long’s industrious running yet again sadly missing the end product of a goal.

Dutchman Cuco Martina impressed when given space to work his creative magic, nevertheless boss Claude Puel will be keen to see far more from elsewhere around the pitch at the San Siro next time out. Inter Milan are a whole different ball game.

The likes of Nathan Redmond, Dusan Tadic and James Ward-Prowse are all capable of unlocking defences on their day, they just need to throw more caution to the wind and find a bit of nasty to silence fans on the road.

Join me on 20th October for the next round of reflection.

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