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Basel 0-1 Aston Villa. Dominik Schmid dribbles in from the left and aims for the bottom left. No good. He’s been Basel’s liveliest customer, though.
Celtic 0-1 Roma. Stephan El Shaarawy whips a cross in from the left, looking for Evan Ferguson. Kasper Schmeichel reads the danger, coming off his line to punch clear, just in the nick of time. Celtic seriously under the cosh here.
Aberdeen 0-0 Strasbourg. Mats Knoester heads home from a corner at a windy Pittodrie, and for a moment, it looks as though the Dons have the lead. But VAR pokes its neb in, and turns out Knoester’s arm played a part. No goal.
Shelbourne 0-1 Crystal Palace. Adam Wharton batters a long-range shot inches over the bar. Palace well on top in Dublin.
GOAL! Basel 0-1 Aston Villa (Guessand 12)
A corner comes in from the left. Some pinball. Evann Guessand, his back to goal, swivels and whips a low drive towards the bottom right. It goes in, bagatelling its way through a forest of defensive legs, giving the unsighted keeper no chance.
GOAL! Shelbourne 0-1 Crystal Palace (Uche 11)
Eddie Nketiah is sent scampering down the inside-left channel. He crosses low for Christantus Uche, who opens his body and steers into the bottom right. Easy as that.
Celtic 0-1 Roma. There’s already a pensive atmosphere in Parkhead. Stephan El Shaarawy whistles a low drive inches wide of the right-hand post. Meanwhile it turns out the opening goal has been credited to Liam Scales, who got in ahead of Gianluca Mancini to divert into his own net.
Basel 0-0 Aston Villa. Dominik Schmid meets a cross looping in from the right by steering a shot with the inside of his foot towards the bottom left. Easy enough for Marco Bizot in the Villa goal.
GOAL! Celtic 0-1 Roma (Mancini 6)
Roma win the first corner of the evening, and score from it. Matias Soulé swings it in from the right, Gianluca Mancini rises above Liam Scales and plants a header into the top-right corner. Simple as that. In the dugout, Wilfried Nancy sits expressionless.
Shelbourne 0-0 Crystal Palace. In the Conference League, Marc Guéhi is this close to prodding home amid a penalty-box meleé.
Celtic 0-0 Roma. It’s all Roma in the early exchanges. The home side struggling to get a touch.
Celtic 0-0 Roma. Celtic are wearing black armbands tonight, on account of John ‘Dixie’ Deans, who passed away this week at the age of 79. A bona-fide club legend, Deans scored hat-tricks in both the 1972 Scottish Cup final and 1974 League Cup final, against Hibs on both occasions.
The 8pms are go. It’s all happening, all over Europe.
This is the Europa League after the 5.45pms and before the 8pms. Nottingham Forest in the top-eight places for now, Rangers as good as out.
The early full-times
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Dinamo Zagreb 1-3 Real Betis
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Ferencváros 2-1 Rangers
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Ludogorets 3-3 PAOK
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Midtjylland 1-0 Genk
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Nice 0-1 Sporting Braga
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Sturm Graz 0-1 Red Star Belgrade
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Stuttgart 4-1 Maccabi Tel Aviv
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Utrecht 1-2 Nottingham Forest
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Young Boys 1-0 Lille
FULL TIME: Ferencváros 2-1 Rangers
Findlay Curtis has one final effort tipped around the post, and that’s it. Robbie Keane’s side, who wear green and white hoops, have done a number on Rangers. Danny Röhl’s team are as good as out of this year’s Europa League.
FULL TIME: Utrecht 1-2 Nottingham Forest
A huge win for Sean Dyche’s side. Forest’s first away win in Europe for 30 years, since a 1-0 win at Auxerre in the 1995-96 Uefa Cup, Steve Stone the hero that day. Their dreams of a top-eight finish are still alive!
Ferencváros 2-1 Rangers. Findlay Curtis sends another fine cross in from the left. Dujon Sterling extends a leg to meet, six yards out, but slices over the bar. Curtis holds his head in his hands and screams: “Come on, man!” Pure frustration.
Utrecht 1-2 Nottingham Forest. Callum Hudson-Odoi nearly wraps things up by steering a drive towards the bottom right from 25 yards. Vasilis Barkas saves spectacularly.
GOAL! Utrecht 1-2 Nottingham Forest (Igor Jesus 88)
Morgan Gibbs-White wedges a ball down the inside-left channel. Callum Hudson-Odoi cut-chips it back for Dan Ndoye, whose header is parried. But the ball drops to Igor Jesus, on the right-hand corner of the six-yard box. He slots, having been on the pitch for a grand total of 88 seconds!
Ferencváros 2-1 Rangers. Rangers haven’t achieved much in their search for an equaliser. But now they launch a rare attack, Findlay Curtis making good down the left and crossing long for Dujon Sterling, who heads powerfully over the bar from six yards. It’s not much, but it’s something, with time running out for Rangers, who will be as good as out if they don’t scrape a point.
Stuttgart 3-1 Maccabi Tel Aviv. Some bonus content here. No need to thank us! And there really is no need to thank us, because it comes courtesy of our old MBM and Clockwatch pal Kári Tulinius. “Stuttgart looked like they were heading to the most comfortable of home wins when they went 3-0 up after yet another defensive rick by Maccabi, when the normally reliable Alexander Nübel tried to save Roy Revivo’s shot with a hand so weak it seemed like it was made out of cottage cheese. The comedy defending moment still goes to the visitors, though, who let in an opener after a covering defender simply fell on his behind while tracking a high ball, giving Lorenz Assignon all the time in the world to measure the aim on his volley.”
GOAL! Ferencváros 2-1 Rangers (Varga 72)
Callum O’Dowda swings a ball in from the left wing. Barnabás Varga heads into the top-right corner from close range. He couldn’t miss, partly because the nearest defender, Emmanuel Fernandez, was the wrong side of the striker, facing upfield, then span around in confusion, making no challenge whatsoever. Comically poor defending.
GOAL! Utrecht 1-1 Nottingham Forest (van der Hoorn 73)
A free kick swung in long from the right. Mike van der Hoorn stoops at the far post to guide a header home from close range. Dan Ndoye was in the area but powerless to do anything.
Celtic v Roma. Wilfried Nancy’s first match as Celtic boss ended in a 2-1 home defeat to Hearts. Nevertheless, he’s named the same starting XI tonight, fielding a back three of Kieran Tierney, Liam Scales and Auston Trusty. Republic of Ireland striker Evan Ferguson starts for Roma.
Basel v Aston Villa. Villa make several changes after the 2-1 win over Arsenal. Emi Buendía is rewarded for his late winner with a starting spot, while Jadon Sancho gets a runout. Marco Bizot starts in goal in place of Emi Martinez. Xherdan Shaqiri, once of Liverpool and Stoke City, captains Basel.
Utrecht 0-1 Nottingham Forest. Arnaud Kalimuendo is this close to his second goal, but can’t bundle home a corner whipped long from the left to the far post. Forest are on top and looking pretty comfortable.
The big 8pm team news
Basel: Hitz, Tsunemoto, Adjetey, Daniliuc, Schmid, Metinho, Leroy, Bacanin, Traore, Shaqiri, Otele.
Subs: Salvi, Pfeiffer, Vouilloz, Koindredi, Broschinski, Soticek, Salah, Ajeti, Barisic, Ruegg, Cisse, Ze.
Aston Villa: Bizot, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Digne, Bogarde, Onana, Guessand, Buendia, Sancho, Malen.
Subs: Wright, Oakley, McGinn, Tielemans, Watkins, Garcia, Maatsen, Rogers, Kamara, Hemmings.
Celtic: Schmeichel, Trusty, Scales, Tierney, Yang, McGregor, Engels, Tounekti, Nygren, Maeda, Hatate.
Subs: Sinisalo, Doohan, Balikwisha, McCowan, Iheanacho, Kenny, Bernardo, Murray, Donovan, Ralston.
Roma: Svilar, Mancini, N’Dicka, Hermoso, Celik, Soule, El Aynaoui, Rensch, Pisilli, El Shaarawy, Ferguson.
Subs: De Marzi, Gollini, Angelino, Cristante, Pellegrini, Tsimikas, Kone, Dybala, Ziolkowski, Bailey, Franca, Ghilardi.
GOAL! Utrecht 0-1 Nottingham Forest (Kalimuendo 52)
Arnaud Kalimuendo breaks the deadlock in the Netherlands. He absolutely barges his way down the inside-left channel, through rather than past two challenges, and slots across the keeper Vasilis Barkas and into the bottom right. An old-fashioned striker’s goal.
… the half-time scores are:
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Ferencvaros 1-1 Rangers
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Utrecht 0-0 Nottingham Forest
Rangers had been leading thanks to an acrobatic Bojan Miovski bicycle kick, but Bence Ötvös equalised at the very end of five additional minutes. File under: Could Be Worse.
Preamble
There are a couple of big games in the Europa League tonight.
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Basel v Aston Villa
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Celtic v Roma
See? Also in the Conference League Shelbourne welcome Crystal Palace while Aberdeen host Strasbourg, so we’ll keep an eye out for those too. All of those games kick off at 8pm GMT. But what of the ones that started at 5.45pm, such as Ferencvaros v Rangers and Utrecht v Nottingham Forest, you ask? Well …
