Uefa Cup review: CSKA 2 Aston Villa 0 (agg 3-1): Aston Villa's European adventure is over after a 2-0 defeat to CSKA Moscow in the Russian capital. With domestic affairs dominating his thoughts, Martin O'Neill opted to send an under-strength and largely experimental side to face the Russians but it stood little chance against a vastly more experienced team.
It was far from embarrassment for Villa but this was always going to be a bridge too far for a makeshift side in the wake of eight first-team regulars controversially being left at home, and so it proved in the return leg of this Uefa Cup last-32 tie.
On the plastic pitch at CSKA’s Luzhniki Stadium it required second-half strikes from Yuri Zhirkov on the hour and Vagner Love in the third minute of stoppage time to break Villa’s resistance.
“I’m disappointed we’ve gone out of the competition,” said O’Neill about a side which included 19-year-old youngsters Barry Bannan and Marc Albrighton making their full debuts.
“But we’ve played a lot of games this year, 11 or 12 more than we did throughout the whole of last season.
“It’s not a decision that was taken lightly, and if I had thought of playing just young players then we would not have travelled here on Tuesday, stayed the three nights and gone back on Friday.
“Circumstances forced me into making my decision, and whilst I am disappointed we were beaten, I will have to see what the rest of the season brings to see if that disappointment is worsened.”
Metalist Kharkiv booked their place for the next round with a comfortable home victory over Sampdoria.
Leading 1-0 from the first leg in Italy, goals from Sergey Valyaev and Jackson Coelho in the first half sealed a 2-0 win on the night, 3-0 on aggregate.
Hamburg cemented their progress with a home victory against NEC Nijmegen.
Martin Jol’s Bundesliga leaders got an early goal from Ivica Olic in the ninth minute to make absolutely sure of victory in the last-32 tie following their 3-0 victory in Holland last week, where Olic also scored.
Hamburg will face Galatasaray in the next round.
Marseille reached the last 16 with a penalty shoot-out victory over FC Twente in Holland.
The French side tenacity paid off when Hatem Ben Arfa levelled the aggregate scores in the 24th minute but when neither side found a winner, it took 16 penalties to settle the tie with Modeste M’Bami converting the winning kick.
A Jerome Rothen strike and two from Peguy Luyindula were enough to see PSG through comfortably against Wolfsburg at the VW Arena after a Guillaume Hoarau brace secured victory for the French outfit in the first leg, .
Makoto Hasebe pulled one back for the Wolves in the second period but it did little to mask the one-sided nature of the tie, 5-1 on aggregate
Sabri Sarioglu slammed home a last-minute winner for Galatasaray at the expense of Bordeaux.
The Turks looked like they were going out on away goals when Bordeaux scored twice in the space of a minute, through Marouane Chamakh and Fernando Cavenaghi, to draw level at 3-3 with a quarter of an hour remaining.
But Turkey full-back Sabri smashed a low 20-yard shot into the corner with seconds remaining to settle an amazing end-to-end tie and eran the right to face Hamburg in the next round.
