It was a successful night in Europe for British teams as Chelsea and Arsenal both secured a place in the knockout stage of the Europa League and Celtic and Rangers remain in the hunt to follow suit.
Chelsea ventured to Belarus to face FC BATE, having beaten the same side 3-1 at Stamford Bridge a couple of weeks ago. This time, Chelsea faced a sterner test to maintain their perfect record in the competition.
After taking the lead through Olivier Giroud before the hour-mark, the Blues were on the receiving end of a barrage of chances as the home side rattled both the crossbar and the post as they searched for an unlikely victory to keep their qualification hopes alive. However, some stoic defending and heroic goalkeeping held Chelsea’s lead until the final whistle, meaning that the tournament favourites progress without dropping a single point and barely a bead of sweat.
Arsenal progressed despite not being able to find a way through the Sporting Lisbon defence thanks to the other result in Group E, meaning that a point was enough to see them reach the last-32 of the competition.
The Gunners were unable to find the back of the net despite Sporting finishing the game with 10 men and hitting the bar, though the draw did extend their unbeaten run to 15 straight games. It was just the second game under new manager Unai Emery that Arsenal have failed to score a goal.
Rangers suffered a frustrating night in a quite incredible match in Moscow which saw Steven Gerrard’s side lose 4-3. Despite being ahead three times in the match, two goals in two minutes was enough to end Rangers’ 11 game unbeaten streak in the competition and saw them slip to third in Group G with just one group-stage match left to play.
Celtic, meanwhile, secured a hard-fought win over RB Leipzig to remain third in Group B, level on points with Leipzig, but behind on head-to-head results. Celtic took the lead in the 11th minute through Kieran Tierney, somewhat against the run of play, but they conceded a crucial blow when Jean-Kevin Augustin was left unmarked in the box to level the match. Celtic, however, gave themselves a fighting chance to progress in the competition thanks Odsonne Edouard’s winner just thirty seconds after the German side drew level.
