Stephen Kenny feels that the manner of his team’s display at Oriel Park is as important as securing the right result

Stephen Kenny believes that his Dundalk team can produce a quality performance tonight to tackle the 'innate snobbery' towards the League of Ireland.

Dundalk enter the second leg of their Champions League qualifier with BATE Borisov chasing a 2-1 deficit and Kenny feels that the manner of his team's display at Oriel Park is as important as securing the right result.

"Sometimes to get credibility within different spheres of Irish life and elements of the media, you have to make your mark on the European stage," says Kenny ahead of a 3,200 sell-out worth €1.2m to the winners.

"I don't think that it's just linked to results. You have teams in the past who set up (defensively) to get a result and get across the line.

"But we're not looking to do that. We're looking to absolutely outplay a team that has played in the group stages, that has beaten Bayern Munich. We're looking to show that technique-wise we can outplay any team that comes here.

"We can't help if people connect with that. Maybe there's some sort of innate snobbery from people who feel they have this great knowledge of world football and European football. Maybe that's a lack of real football intelligence."

Ireland manager Martin O'Neill is expected to attend, and there was also an enquiry from Ed Sheeran's tour manager for two tickets ahead of his gigs in Dublin this weekend. However, Dundalk do not expect the singer to show.

Irish Independent