SOCCER: Villa edge Basel to join leaders as Roma roll past Celtic and Lyon stay strong

BASEL — Aston Villa claimed a 2-1 victory over Basel on Thursday, with goals from Evann Guessand and Youri Tielemans keeping their Europa League campaign firmly on track.

The win moved Villa to 15 points, level with Olympique Lyonnais and Midtjylland at the top of the group after six matches. Basel, meanwhile, remain outside the play-off positions with six points.

Villa settled quickly and opened the scoring in the 12th minute when a loose ball from a corner dropped to Guessand, who calmly finished from close range.

Basel worked their way back into the match and found the equalizer in the 34th minute. Flavius Daniliuc reacted quickest to a well-delivered free kick from Xherdan Shaqiri, poking the ball past the keeper to bring the hosts level.

Tielemans restored Villa’s advantage just minutes after coming on as a substitute, slotting home a composed finish in the 53rd minute. Villa held firm for the remainder of the match, keeping the Swiss side at bay to secure all three points.

Lyon continued their strong run with a 2-1 home win over Go Ahead Eagles in a match that sparked into life immediately, producing three goals inside the first 11 minutes. Afonso Moreira scored for the hosts after just three minutes, Milan Smit quickly equalized, and Pavel Sulc restored Lyon’s lead before the crowd had even settled in.

In Glasgow, AS Roma cruised past Celtic with a commanding performance, highlighted by a first-half brace from Evan Ferguson and an own goal by Liam Scales, giving the Italian side a 3-0 advantage heading into halftime.

Over in Bergen, SK Brann endured a disastrous start against Fenerbahce after Kerem Akturkoglu scored in the fifth minute. Moments later, midfielder Eivind Helland was shown a straight red card, forcing Brann to play with 10 men. Fenerbahce’s Talisca took full advantage, netting a hat trick and sealing a 4-0 win for the Turkish visitors.

SC Freiburg also benefited from a numerical advantage at home against RB Salzburg, who had Petar Ratkov sent off just before halftime. Shortly after the restart, Philipp Lienhart broke the deadlock to give Freiburg a 1-0 victory. -Tommy Lund in Gdansk; editing by Clare Fallon/Reuters