Malen powers Villa as crowd trouble mars Europa League win
PARIS, France (AFP) — Donyell Malen scored twice as Aston Villa beat Young Boys 2-1 in a Europa League tie marred by crowd trouble on Thursday, while Roma brought an end to Midtjylland’s perfect record in the league phase.
Malen nodded hosts Villa in front from a Youri Tielemans cross but, while celebrating, was struck on the head by an object thrown from the section housing the away supporters.
The Dutch international suffered a small cut but shrugged off the incident and doubled Villa’s lead after being teed up by Morgan Rogers just before half-time.
Young Boys fans clashed with police after the goal but Captain Loris Benito went over and pleaded with them to settle down as the match was briefly interrupted.
Joel Monteiro pulled one back in the 90th minute for Young Boys with a thumping finish but Villa secured a fourth win in five games to leave them trailing only Midtjylland on goal difference.
Danish side Midtjylland slid to their first defeat of the competition after going down 2-1 away to Serie A leaders Roma.
Neil El Aynaoui and Stephan El Shaarawy got the goals for the Italians before Paulinho’s consolation effort.
Celtic earned a precious 3-1 win at Feyenoord despite falling behind to an early strike from Ayase Ueda.
The Scottish champions replied with goals from Yang Hyun-jun, Reo Hatate and substitute Benjamin Nygren to climb higher in the play-off places following only a second win in five games.
Nottingham Forest host Malmo later, in a repeat of the 1979 European Cup final.