Aston Villa extended their winning streak to eight games in all competitions on Thursday, beating Basel 2-1 in the Europa League to secure at least a place in the play-offs.
Villa are tied with Lyon and Midtjylland at the top of the second-largest European competition with 15 points, thanks to five wins in six games.
The English team recovered from a poor start to the season and is now third in the Premier League, including a 2-1 victory over leader Arsenal on Saturday.
At St. Jakob-Park in Basel, summer signing Evann Guessand put Villa 1-0 ahead early on from a corner before Flavius Daniliuc equalized by connecting with Xherdan Shaqiri’s curling free-kick.
Youri Tielemans, who came on at half-time, needed just eight minutes to place a 20-metre shot into the bottom corner of the net and restore Villa’s lead for good.
Villa’s Spanish coach Unai Emery has won the Europa League trophy four times during his spells in charge of Sevilla and Villarreal.
Afonso Moreira and Pavel Šulc scored in the first 11 minutes as Lyon secured a 2-1 victory over Go Ahead Eagles, while Cho Gue-sung scored the winner as Danish team Midtjylland beat Genk 1-0.
After eight games, the top eight in the 36-team table advance directly to the round of 16 in March.
The teams placed ninth through twenty-fourth advance to a playoff in February.
In other games, Celta Vigo, which had shocked hosts Real Madrid 2-0 on Sunday in La Liga, returned to reality with a 2-1 loss at home to Bologna. Anderson Talisca scored a hat-trick for Fenerbahce in a 4-0 away win against Brann.
Earlier, Real Betis remained unbeaten after a 3-1 victory over Dinamo in Zagreb.
Young Boys wasted a penalty but still claimed a 1-0 victory over Lille, who played an hour with ten men after Ayyoub Bouaddi was red carded.
Stuttgart recovered from a 5-0 defeat by Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga by beating Maccabi Tel Aviv 4-1.
Dyche undefeated
Igor Jesus came on in the 86th and still had time to score a last-minute goal for Nottingham Forest in their 2-1 win at Utrecht.
The forward scored his fourth goal of the campaign two minutes from time after Utrecht goalkeeper Vasilis Barkas rebounded Dan Ndoye’s header.
Arnaud Kalimuendo gave Forest the lead early in the second half before Mike van der Hoorn equalized with a header.
Since Sean Dyche took over as coach, Forest remain unbeaten in the Europa League with three wins and one draw.
Celtic de Nancy loses 3-0 to Rome
Barnabás Varga scored the winning goal to complete a 2-1 Ferencváros comeback victory over Scottish team Rangers and remained unbeaten with four wins and two draws.
Striker Bojan Miovski gave Rangers a 1-0 lead before Bence Ötvös equalized in first-half stoppage time for the hosts, who are managed by former Celtic player Robbie Keane.
Rangers remain winless in the league stage.
Nice remains the only Europa League team without points after a 1-0 home defeat to Braga with a goal from Pau Victor. It was the eighth consecutive defeat for the French squad in different competitions.
Celtic marked the European debut of their new manager Wilfried Nancy with a 3-0 defeat to Roma.
Defender Liam Scales started a night to forget for the Scottish club with an own goal and Evan Ferguson added two more goals from inside the area still in the first 45 minutes. Arne Engels had the chance to score in first-half stoppage time, but his penalty hit the post.
Conference League
In the third tier, the Conference League, Crystal Palace swept Shelbourne 3-0 away in Dublin with goals from Christantus Uche, Eddie Nketiah and Yeremy Pino.
Two-time champions Fiorentina beat Dynamo kyiv 2-1, and Strasbourg won 1-0 at Aberdeen to lead the standings with 13 points from five games.
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