No one expected Sevilla to become champions last season and no one expected Rangers, Frankfurt to be in the final in this 2021/22 season and managed to beat big favorites like Barcelona on their way in the quarter-final and semi-final phases with defeat.
A series of surprises often occur in the Europ League so that to ensure from the beginning now the favorite club must win the Europa League is clearly very difficult to happen because in addition to performance sometimes the luck factor cannot be used.
Some of the big clubs for the Champions League especially one of the participants in Group F (Dortmund, Newcastle, PSG, and Milan) will definitely be in the Europa League and this will obviously be even more difficult because not only Liverpool the biggest club will be taken into account some of the big clubs that are out of the UCL also need to be taken into account.
A lot of the results we have seen in the last season in the Europa League were not based on luck only. Manchester United played a horrible second game against Sevilla when they lost 3-0. The first game involved some luck when Sevilla scored 2 goals and was able to tie the game I think with an own goal as well. But the biggest shock was when Arsenal got eliminated. They were by far the biggest favorite and yet they got kicked out.
This season though the winner will probably have to beat Liverpool. I know that they have their bad games as well, but I think in the Europa League they will still be one of the hardest nuts to crack.