Europa League Roundup: Arsenal and Lazio Maintain Their 100% Starts While Athletic Suffer

Six of the twelve Europa League groups have reached the halfway point now, with action still to come on Thursday evening. And whilst a number of the more fancied sides in the competition have inevitably exerted their superiority, a few clubs continue to defy the odds in an intriguing tournament so far.

Arsenal are among the teams who have made an ideal start and secured a narrow 1-0 win away to Red Star Belgrade in Group H. It was an uncomfortable and frustrating game for long periods but the Gunners - once again consisting of many fringe players - were helped by Milan Rodic's red card ten minutes from time and sealed the victory with a magnificent overhead kick from Olivier Giroud with five minutes to spare.

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One would expect Arsene Wenger's men to go far in Europe's second-tier competition as you would Lazio and they maintained a perfect start to their Group K campaign with an accomplished 3-1 win away to Nice - towering midfielder Sergej Milinkovic-Savic bagging a brace in that contest.

Ostersunds FK, managed by Englishman Graham Potter, surprisingly won their opening two Group J fixtures and were tantalisingly close to defeating Athletic Bilbao as Inaki Williams came to the rescue of Los Leones in the dying minutes to snatch a 2-2 draw in Sweden.

Elsewhere, another club who've won three out of three in Europe this season are Zenit St. Petersburg and the Russians made it a trio of victories with a 3-1 triumph over Rosenborg.

And there's still more to come with Everton and AC Milan both in action later...

Here are the results so far in full: