Key events
Max Rushden
It’s half an hour after attempting to watch 18 football matches at the same time on the final match day of the Champions League group stage, so it’s still a little early to tell whether I think it was a brilliant night of football or not.
The information overload from a TV, laptop and phone means I may need a couple of weeks to really process it – by which time of course this will all be forgotten and we’ll be wondering whether one point from three Premier League games is enough for Thomas Frank to keep his job.
Here’s a dash of transfer news for your delectation:
The following 13 sides secured their place in the knockouts after Matchday 7, otherwise known as last week:
Bologna, Braga, Celta Vigo, Crvena Zvezda, Fenerbahçe, Genk, Nottingham Forest, Panathinaikos, PAOK, Porto, Roma, Stuttgart, Viktoria Plzen.
Meanwhile Lyon, Villa, Ferencvaros, Freiburg, Midtjylland and Real Betis were already through as of Matchday 6.
And again, Aston Villa and Lyon are the two teams guaranteed to be in the round of 16 already. Clear?
Ewan Murray
Martin O’Neill’s involvement in celebrated European moments in Celtic’s history means he is entitled to bridle at the belief that domain is no longer a priority. O’Neill used pre-match media duties for the Europa League visit of Utrecht on Thursday to point towards what has the potential to be an uplifting few days for the Scottish champions.
“We got a result in Feyenoord and fought our guts out in Bologna,” he said. “We don’t now want to just throw it away. We want to try and go for it if we can. We could still lose the game. We might not win the match and we might go out of the competition, but we want to give it a go.”
Tonight we reveal the Uefa Europa League table – IN FULL and UNREDACTED:
As it stands, Lyon, Aston Villa, Freiburg, Midtjylland, Braga, Roma, Ferencvaros and Real Betis are the clubs in the top eight.
As ninth-placed Porto are on 14pts, it means that Lyon and Aston Villa, joint-top and both on 18pts, are the only clubs mathematically guaranteed to finish in the top eight, and go straight to the round of 16.
Preamble
Welcome to the Union of European Football Associations Europa League Matchday 8. It’s all to play for this evening as 11 hungry teams compete for a paltry five remaining knockout phase places, not to mention the tear-up to make it into the hallowed top eight and qualify automatically for the last 16.
Aston Villa v Salzburg, Nottingham Forest v Ferencvaros and Celtic v Utrecht will be among the fixtures that are uppermost in our thoughts among the feast of 18 matches. But we’ll try to stay across the mind-melting complexity of the league-phase finale in all its glory.
Will we witness anything remotely as exciting as the goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin “doing a Jimmy Glass” against Real Madrid, and sending Benfica into the Champions League knockouts with a 98th-minute header? It seems unlikely but stranger things have happened.
Kick-offs at 8pm UK/9pm CET.
