Aston Villa Wins 8th Straight Game With 2-1 Victory Over Basel In Europa League
Aston Villa beat Basel 2-1 in the Europa League on Thursday, extending their winning streak to eight matches in all competitions and securing at least a play-off point.
Villa are tied with Lyon and Midtjylland in the second-tier European competition on 15 points from five wins from six matches.
Villa have bounced back after a poor start to the season and sit third in the Premier League, including a 2-1 win over leaders Arsenal on Saturday.
St. in Basel At Jakob-Park, summer signing Evann Guessand put Villa 1-0 up early following a corner kick before Flavius Daniliuc equalized with Xherdan Shaqiri’s curling free-kick.
Villa needed just eight minutes to take the lead again in the first half when substitute Youri Tielemans fired into the bottom corner of the goal from 20 yards.
Villa manager Unai Emery won the Europa League trophy four times during his time in charge of Sevilla and Villarreal.
While Afonso Moreira and Pavel Šulc defeated Go Ahead Eagles 2-1 with the goals scored by Lyon in the first 11 minutes, Cho Gue-sung secured the victory by beating Genk 1-0 for the Danish team Midtjylland.
After eight matches, the top eight of the 36-team ranking will advance directly to the round of 16 in March.
The teams placed ninth through 24th in the qualifying play-offs in February.
In other matches, Celta Vigo, who defeated Real Madrid 2-0 at home in La Liga on Sunday, lost 2-1 to Bologna at home. Anderson Talisca scored a hat-trick in the match they beat Brann 4-0.
Previously, Real Betis remained undefeated after beating Dinamo 3-1 in Zagreb.
Young Boys defeated Lille, who played with 10 players for an hour after Ayyoub Bouaddi’s red card, 1-0 from the penalty spot.
Stuttgart, which lost 5-0 to Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga, defeated Maccabi Tel Aviv 4-1.
Dyche’s unbeaten player, Igor Jesus, came on in the 86th minute and managed to score a late goal for Nottingham Forest, who beat Utrecht 2-1.
The striker scored his fourth goal of the season two minutes later after Utrecht goalkeeper Vasilis Barkas failed to keep Dan Ndoye’s header.
Arnaud Kalimuendo gave Forest the lead early in the second half before Mike van der Hoorn equalized with a header.
Since Sean Dyche took over as manager, Forest are unbeaten in the Europa League with three wins and a draw.
Nancy’s Celtic lost 3-0 to Roma Barnabás Varga scored the winning goal to complete Ferencváros’ 2-1 comeback victory over Scottish side Rangers to remain unbeaten with four wins and two draws.
While striker Bojan Miovski’s acrobatic volley put Rangers ahead 1-0, the home team, coached by former Celtic player Robbie Keane, Kendi Ötvös equalized during the first half stoppage time.
Rangers are winless in the league stage.
Nice remain the only Europa League team without a point after losing 1-0 at home to Braga thanks to a goal from Pau Victor. This was Nice’s eighth consecutive defeat in all competitions.
Celtic made their new coach Wilfried Nancy’s debut in Europe by defeating Roma 3-0.
Defender Liam Scales started an unforgettable night for host Celtic with an own goal and Evan Ferguson added two more goals from inside the penalty area in the first 45 minutes. Arne Engels had the chance to pull the ball back during stoppage time in the first half, but his penalty kick went off the post.
Celtic lost 2-1 to Hearts in Nancy’s first game in charge in the domestic league on Sunday.
When asked if she had expected such a difficult start at Celtic, Nancy said: “I was expecting it. Come on lads, I’ve only been here a week.”
Conference League In the third-tier Conference League, Crystal Palace beat Shelbourne 3-0 in Dublin with Christantus Uche, Eddie Nketiah and Yeremy Pino on target.
Two-time runner-up Fiorentina beat Dynamo Kiev 2-1 and Strasbourg beat Aberdeen 1-0 to move to the top with 13 points from five matches.
