LONDON: Jose Mourinho received a red card but his Fenerbahce team still drew 1-1 with his former club Manchester United, whose coach Erik ten Hag admitted his side lacked a “killer” instinct, in the Europa League on Thursday.

Elsewhere, Tottenham Hotspur made it three wins from three with a narrow 1-0 win at home to AZ Alkmaar. Spurs are one of three teams to have won all three matches alongside Lazio and Anderlecht who enjoyed 2-0 wins over Twente and Ludogorets respectively — with both opponents reduced to 10 men.

Artem Dovbyk’s first-half penalty earned AS Roma a 1-0 home victory over Dynamo Kyiv and Ajax Amsterdam eased to a 3-0 win over Qarabag.

In Istanbul, United took the lead in the 15th minute when Joshua Zirkzee found Christian Eriksen with a short pass and the Danish midfielder let fly with a powerful first-time shot from the edge of the area.

United goalkeeper Andre Onana made a superb double-save to parry two Youssef En-Nesyri headers to protect their lead at half-time.

It was wiped out, however, within four minutes of the restart as sloppy defending allowed En-Nesyri to head in Allan Saint-Maximin’s inviting cross from close range.

Mourinho was shown a red card just before the hour mark for protesting too vigorously when French referee Clement Turpin turned down a penalty appeal.

“He [the referee] told me something incredible. He could see the action in the box and my behaviour on the touchline,” Mourinho told TNT Sports. “I congratulate him because it is incredible his peripheral vision. During the game, 100 miles per hour, he had one eye on the penalty situation and one eye on the bench and my behaviour. That is why he is one of the best referees in the world.”

Ten Hag’s side, who have struggled for consistency in the early part of the season, have three points after drawing their ope­n­ing three games in the competition while unbeaten Fenerbahce have five points.

“We have to win and we get again in the position to win, but we have to be killing [the opponent off] more,” said Ten Hag. “We let the opponent get away with the point.”

Mourinho led United to the Europa League title in 2017 during his two-and-half years at Old Trafford. He took the Fenerbahce job in this past offseason.

“My boys played an amazing match,” Mourinho said. “We played against a team that is at a superior level to us. We finished the game with a center-back playing at right-back and a right-back at left-back. We had to do a crazy puzzle but our performance was extraordinary and I couldn’t ask for anything more from the players.”

SPURS MARCH ON

Richarlison’s penalty was enough for Tottenham to earn three points against visitors AZ.

The London side made a host of changes to the side that beat West Ham 4-1 in the Premier League at the weekend and one of the newcomers, 17-year-old Mikey Moore, almost gave them an early lead but headed wide.

The introduction of Brennan Johnson at half-time moved Spurs up a gear and they broke the deadlock when Maxim Dekker fouled Lucas Bergvall in the area and Richarlison chipped his penalty into the net in the 53rd minute.

Alkmaar’s David Moller Wolfe received a second yellow card and was sent off in the 85th minute, dashing any remaining hopes for the Dutch side as Spurs maintained their perfect start to the competition.

“Another one ticked off,” Spurs captain Maddison told TNT Sports. “That’s three in three, nine points puts us in a very good position.”

Lazio kept their 100 percent record intact with Pedro Rodrguez and Gustav Isaksen on target at Twente who had goalkeeper Lars Unnerstall sent off 11 minutes into the match for a foul on Boulaye Dia.

English winger Samuel Edozie and Anders Dreyer scored in Anderlecht’s victory at home to Ludogorets, who had Caio Vidal sent off.

Ajax sit fourth with seven points after easing to victory at Azerbaijani side Qarabag, who ended the match with nine players, Julio Romao sent off after just 15 minutes and Elvin Jafarguliyev following him 11 minutes from time.

Kenneth Taylor put the Dutch side ahead in the 36th minute. A penalty from Wout Weghorst made the game safe in the 74th minute with Chuba Akpom sealing it three minutes later.

Summer signing Dovbyk converted from the spot in the 23rd minute after Taras Mykhavko was penalised for pulling Tommaso Baldanzi’s shirt as Roma beat Dynamo for their first Europa League victory under new coach Ivan Juric to move to four points after three games.

LATVIAN CHALLENGE

Eintracht Frankfurt, the 2022 Europa League winners, overcame a surprisingly tricky challenge to secure a 1-0 home victory against Latvia’s FK RFS, with midfielder Hugo Larsson scoring the decisive goal in the 79th minute.

Rangers produced one of the performances of the night with Vaclav Cerny scoring twice in a 4-0 win over FCSB which lifts them to 11th in the table.

Real Sociedad beat Maccabi Tel Aviv 2-1 in Belgrade thanks to goals from Jon Pacheco and Sergio Gomez. Striker Dor Turgeman grabbed a late consolation for the hosts nine minutes from time before teammate Osher Davida was sent off for a second booking just before fulltime.

Athletic Bilbao beat Slavia Prague 1-0 at home thanks to a first-half strike from Nico Williams, that was set up by Alex Berenguer.

Olympique Lyonnais suffered a 1-0 home defeat to Besiktas after a late goal by Gedson Fernandes.

Porto’s Samu scored his fourth goal of the campaign and Tiago Djalo added another one for Porto to beat Hoffenheim 2-0 for the Portuguese club’s first win of the campaign.

PAOK came from two goals down to salvage a 2-2 draw with Czech side Viktoria Plzen in Thessaloniki.

TNS MAKE HISTORY

In the third-tier Conference League, The New Saints, who became the first team from the Welsh league to reach the group stage of a European competition, won 2-0 against the Kazakh side Astana at home.

Chelsea routed Panathinaikos 4-1 in Athens to make it two wins from two.

Joao Felix scored twice — his first one set up by Mykhailo Mudryk in the 22nd minute. The visitors added three more in the first 14 minutes of the second half thr­o­ugh Mudryk, Felix’s second and Chri­stopher Nkunku’s penalty. Facundo Pell­istri netted for Panathinaikos in the 69th.

Beaten by West Ham United and then Olympiakos in the last two Conference League finals, Fiorentina survived a scare in their 4-2 win at St Gallen thanks to Jonathan Ikone’s two goals.

Real Betis played 1-1 with Copenhagen while Iceland’s Vikingur beat Belgium’s Cercle Brugge 3-1 to record their first victory in Europe.

The champions of the Republic of Ireland were too strong for the champions of Northern Ireland as Shamrock Rovers routed Larne 4-1 in Belfast.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2024