Europa League: Leicester City fumble against Napoli but West Ham win comfortably, Celtic and Betis play out a thriller

(Football news) Europa League football was back with a bang as fans were treated to scintillating football yesterday. Leicester City fumbled a lead at King Power Stadium but the other English club West Ham won comfortably in Croatia. Betis, Lyon and Monaco all won to start off their campaign with three points.

Leicester City drew 2-2 against Napoli, Victor Osimhen scored two late goals to deny Leicester all three points. Brendan Rodgers side took the lead within the first 10 minutes as Harvey Barnes cross was brilliantly slotted in by Ayoze Perez. Barnes then doubled Leicester’s advantage with a thumping strike to give them a 2-0 lead. Although Paston Daka thought he had scored, the VAR ruled out the goal as this proved to be an important decision. Napoli roared back thanks to two late goals from Osimhen, who was arguably the man of the match. Leicester would be hoping that they win against Legia Warsaw to qualify for the round of 32 for the first time in the clubs history.

West Ham were at their clinical best as they beat Dinamo Zagreb 2-0 as David Moyes handed full debut to Kurt Zouma and Vlasic. West Ham opened the scoring through Michael Antonio in the 21st minute as Declan Rice put finishing touches on their first victory in Europe since 1999. West Ham will now face Rapid Wien in their next match as they aim to make a long European run considering the form they are in.

The match of the day was played out between the Scottish giants Cletic and Real Betis as Betis ran out 4-3 winners. The match was an enthralling contest as both teams cancelled each other out with plenty of goals. The scoring started early on as Ajeti and Juranovic gave Celtic the lead within the first 30 minutes but Betis scored 4 goals through a double from Juanmi and two other goals from Miranda and Iglesias as they were at their ruthless best. The club from Scotland made the last ten minutes as they pegged a goal back through Ralston but their efforts went in vain as they lost the match 4-3. Group G is the toughest group containing Bayer Leverkusen and this loss hurt the Celtic fans as qualification to the next stage looks like an uphill task.

Also read: Here’s what you can look forward to at this week’s Europa League competition

Lyon won comfortably against the Scottish champions Rangers by two goals as Steven Gerrard’s side were left disappointed as they delivered a very under par performance in front of their home fans. Lyon on the other hand scored early on through Toko Ekambi and an own goal from the Rangers captain Tavernier rounded up a perfect night for the french club. Gerrard would be hoping this is just a blip as they face Sparta Prague next and hopefully he would be hoping to get a positive result.

The other notable results were:

Monaco 1 (Diatta) – 0 SK Sturm Graz

Galatasaray 1 (Strakosha)(own goal) – 0 Lazio

Bayer Leverkusen 2 (Palacios,Wirtz) – 1 Ferencvaros  (Mmaee)

Lokomotiv Moscow 1 (Anjorin) – 1 Marseille (Under)(pen)

PSV 2 (Gotze, Gakpo) – 2 Real Sociedad (Januzaj, Isak)
   
 

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