Stephen Kenny vents frustration over St Patrick's Athletic's league fixture scheduling

Stephen Kenny reiterated his belief that the FAI needs to do more to help Irish clubs qualify for the group stages of European competition following last night's hard earned draw with Istanbul Basaksehir.

The Super Saints face a trip to Turkey for Wednesday's return leg, but before that they're in SSE Airtricity League action against Dundalk on Sunday.

In the build up to last night's game the Pat's manager said it was "insane" and "hard to fathom" why they weren't being given the weekend off so that they could properly prepare for the decisive second game against the Turkish Super Lig outfit.

And after last night's battling draw, the former Republic of Ireland manager once more vented his frustration about the situation.

"It is difficult," he said of having to play again on Sunday.

"I'm led to believe that the Turkish League have cancelled all the games for their European teams this week. They've prioritised the teams qualifying for the group stages, so they've cancelled all the league games.

"And if you're serious and ambitious, that's what you do."

Kenny is one of just three managers - alongside Stephen Bradley and Michael O'Neill - to have guided a League of Ireland club to the lucrative group stages of a European competition.

He did it with Dundalk and he says that back then, the FAI were willing to help the Lilywhites out.

"At Dundalk, we wouldn't have qualified for the group stages only Fran Gavin [FAI's Director of Competitions in 2016] made a decision to cancel one or two matches for us at that time, and that was pivotal in us qualifying for the group stages.

"They [Basaksehir] have a rest. It will be a game against them in five and a half days.

"We've lost Romal [Palmer] tonight. It looks like for a few weeks so it just