With another round of European fixtures complete, Merseysportslive reviews how the UK teams got on.
Champions League
Chelsea 0-3 Bayern
A night to forget for Frank Lampard and his Chelsea as Bayern Munich dominated the blues. Serge Gnabry’s brace left Chelsea in turmoil and made it six goals in two games in the capital for the youngster. A third for the German giants came from the clinical Lewandowski as he capped off a grim night for the English side. Chelsea will head to the Allianz with a huge deficit to overcome and will be without Marco Alonso who was sent off in the late stages.
Real Madrid 1-2 Manchester City
Manchester City may be banned from Europe for the next two seasons, but they are not going out anytime soon. City came away from the Bernabeu with an unexpected two away goals. After Isco put his side ahead Gabriel Jesus brought Pep’s side back into it, getting on the end of a De bruyne cross. The brilliant skill used by the Belgian to assist Jesus was then bettered by ending City’s penalty woes and giving his side the win.
Europa League
United 5-0 Club Brugge (6-1)
It was not the cagey affair that it was in Bruges as united demolished the Belgian side. New boy Bruno Fernandes got the scoring underway converting another penalty. Ighalo added the second with his first United goal assisted perfectly by Mata. McTominay’s brilliant strike into the bottom corner gave the Red Devils a comfortable lead. A double from Fred finished the slaughter from United as he first tapped into an open goal and then fired home from the edge of the box.
Arsenal 1-2 Olympiakos (2-2 Olympiakos on away goals)
The Gunners faced heartbreak as they exited the Europa League via away goals. Poor defending of corners allowed the Greek side to take the lead in the second half with Cisse heading home. In extra time Arsenal looked to have won the tie as Aubameyang acrobatically fired an overhead kick into the back of the net. Deep into extra time Olympiakos found the winner as El-Arabi finished first time to send his side through. Arsenal had one last chance but uncharacteristically Aubameyang missed from close range.
Espanyol 3-2 Wolves (3-6)
It was always going to be tough for the Spanish side to overturn the four-goal deficit. An early goal and a ray of hope was quickly diminished as Traore equalised within minutes. Now needing to score five the tie was pretty much dead. A penalty early in the second half for Espanyol was futile as a 20-minute goalless period was followed by a Doherty equaliser. Calleri will never be more disappointed to score a hattrick again as he slotted home Espanyol’s third in stoppage time.
Celtic 1-3 Copenhagen (2-4)
Celtic faced a crushing 3-1 defeat after late goals for the away side killed the Scottish giants off. Having gone a goal down, Edouard levelled the tie from the spot with just seven minutes till full time. It was an eventful seven minutes as the Danish team found the back of the net twice in three minutes to put the game out of reach.
Sporting Braga 0-1 Rangers (2-4)
The other half of Glasgow had a more successful day as they qualified on Wednesday evening. Rangers had worked hard in the first leg to come back from two goals down to win 3-2 and they worked hard again on Wednesday. A strong defensive display paired with a goal from former Liverpool Player, Kent was enough to send Gerrard’s side through.
Picture by: Oleschyk / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)
