Europa League Round-Up: Milan and Arsenal Come Out on Top While Everton's Misery Continues
Club football on the European scene came to life this week with the Champions League kicking things off on Tuesday and following up with more action on Wednesday as the continent's biggest teams squared off.
Thursday brought about even more talking points, with several more clubs coming to the fore in the Europa League to provide their own dose of entertainment.
Below is a round-up of the big matches, as well as all of the full-time results.
AC Milan's new signing Andre Silva was certainly the one to watch against Austria Vienna. The Portuguese scored a hat-trick on the night, with his three goals sandwiched between strikes from Hakan Calhanoglu and Suso.
Silva's feat made him the first player to score three goals in a single game for Milan since Kaka 11 years ago.
Everton were dismissed by Atalanta with a 3-0 scoreline, producing yet another disappointing result, having already conceded the same number of goals against Tottenham on the weekend.
Goals from Andrea Masiello, captain Alejandro Gomez and Bryan Cristante sealed the deal for the Italian side, who duly punished Ronald Koeman's uninspired men.
Full Results Table
Home | Score | Away |
Slavia Prague | 1 - 0 | Maccabi Tel-Aviv |
Villarreal | 3 - 1 | FC Astana |
Dynamo Kiev | 3 - 1 | Skenderbeu Korce |
Young Boys | 1 - 1 | Partizan Belgrade |
Istabul Basaksehir | 0 - 0 | Ludogorets Razgrad |
TSG Hoffenheim | 1 - 2 | Braga |
Austria Vienna | 1 - 5 | AC Milan |
Rijeka | 1 - 2 | AEK Athens |
Apollon Limassol | 1 - 1 | Lyon |
FC Copenhagen | 0 - 0 | Lokomotiv Moscow |
FC Zlin | 0 - 0 | Sheriff Tiraspol |
FCSB | 3 - 0 | Viktoria Plzen |
Hapoel Be'er | 2 - 1 | FC Lugano |
Red Star Belgrave | 1 - 1 | BATE Borisov |
Guimaraes | 1 - 1 | FC Salzburg |
Marseille | 1 - 0 | Konyaspor |
FC Zorya Luhansk | 0 - 2 | Ostersunds FK |
Hertha Berlin | 0 - 0 | Athletic Bilbao |
Vitesse Arnhem | 2 - 3 | Lazio |
Real Sociedad | 4 - 0 | Rosenborg |
Vardar | 0 - 5 | Zenit St Petersburg |
Arsenal | 1 - 1 | FC Cologne |
Atalanta | 3 - 0 | Everton |
Zulte Waregem | 1 - 5 | Nice |
Dutch boys Vitesse Arnhem put up quite the fight against Lazio, opening the scoring and then taking the lead after the Serie A side had equalised. But Ciro Immobile scored yet another equaliser and Alessandro Murgi completed the comeback with his left foot in the 75th minute.
The biggest match of the night was undoubtedly the one between Arsenal and FC Cologne at the Emirates. The match was delayed for an hour due to safety concerns as over 20,000 fans came in from Germany to support their team in a match for which 2,900 away tickets had been allocated.
Jhon Cordoba pounced on a mistake to put the visitors ahead in the ninth minute of the match, but Sead Kolasinac put the Gunners back level just four minutes after coming on in the second half.
Richard Heathcote/GettyImages
Arsene Wenger's men would eventually pull clear after Alexis Sanchez blasted in a shot from outside of the box in the 67th minute. And Hector Bellerin's 81st minute goal put the icing on the cake for the Londoners, compounding the misery of the travelling support.
