Europa League: Sean Dyche’s Nottingham Forest beat Porto 2-0; Aston Villa shocked by Go Ahead Eagles | Football News
Nottingham Forest secured a 2-0 victory against Porto in the Europa League under new manager Sean Dyche, while Aston Villa faced a surprising 2-1 defeat to Go Ahead Eagles on Thursday.Forest, who had recently dismissed Ange Postecoglou after a brief 40-day tenure spanning eight games, ended their winless streak of 10 matches dating back to the Premier League season opener.Dyche, who started his playing career at Forest, made an immediate impact in his first game, with the team benefiting from VAR decisions against the Portuguese side.Morgan Gibbs-White converted a penalty in the 19th minute after Jan Bednarek was called for handball.“I can finally breathe tonight. It has been a difficult couple of months with all the changes and the bad performances. It feels a lot more positive and it needs to stay like that. That’s credit to the manager. He has instilled that in us, and we have to keep up that mentality.”Former Southampton defender Bednarek’s potential equaliser in the second half was disallowed following a VAR review due to Samu Aghehowa being offside.VAR intervened again when Nicola Savona’s diving booking was overturned, resulting in a second penalty with 13 minutes remaining.Igor Jesus scored his first goal at the City Ground by converting the penalty.Villa manager Unai Emery acknowledged the challenges of European football after their perfect Europa League start ended in the Netherlands.Villa had previously defeated Bologna and Feyenoord, living up to their status as tournament favourites.Evann Guessand gave Villa an early lead with his first goal for the club.The Dutch Cup winners fought back in challenging weather conditions to achieve a historic win in their first European group stage appearance.Mathis Suray equalized before halftime with a deflected shot, and Mats Deijl chipped the ball over Emiliano Martinez to take the lead.Emi Buendia, who had scored the winning goal against Tottenham last Sunday, missed a late penalty that could have secured a draw.“Today showed us how difficult it is to play in Europe, to play away. This is the reason I love football, because football has a lot of different ways to win. You can dominate, like we did, you have chances to score, but if we are conceding a few chances, maybe you can lose. And we did.”Rangers suffered a 3-0 defeat to Brann in Norway, marking a disappointing start for new manager Danny Rohl.The Glasgow team’s hopes of advancing are diminishing after their third consecutive Europa League loss left them at the bottom of the 36-team standings.Emil Kornvig scored at the back post to give Brann a halftime advantage.Jacob Sorensen headed in from a free-kick, exploiting poor defending, before Noah Holm added a third goal.Celtic secured their first European victory of the season by defeating Sturm Graz in a comeback win.Liam Scales and Benjamin Nygren scored within three minutes of each other after Tomi Horvat’s impressive opening goal for the Austrian side at Celtic Park.Midtjylland claimed the top spot in the standings with a 3-0 victory over Maccabi Tel-Aviv.Lyon maintained their perfect record by defeating Basel 2-0 with goals from Corentin Tolisso and Afonso Moreira.Braga continued their winning streak, securing their third consecutive victory by beating Red Star Belgrade 2-0.Bologna achieved their first win in the league phase with a 2-1 victory at Steaua Bucharest.Fenerbahce earned a 1-0 win against Stuttgart, while Real Betis drew 0-0 at Genk.
