Staff Reporter.
(Reuters) – Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo scored on his return to the starting lineup as they sealed a place in the Europa League knockout rounds with a 3-0 victory over Sheriff Tiraspol at Old Trafford on Thursday.
Ronaldo, who was left out of the squad for the weekend Premier League trip to Chelsea for disciplinary reasons, scored United’s third goal after Diogo Dalot and Marcus Rashford had given the home side a comfortable lead.
United are in second place in group E with 12 points from five matches ahead of their visit to Real Sociedad in their final pool game next week, where victory could see them top the table and book a place straight into the last 16.
Sociedad defeated Omonia 2-0 thanks to goals from Robert Navarro and Brais Mendez, while Jose Mourinho’s AS Roma kept their knockout round hopes alive with a 2-1 win at HJK Helsinki in group C after striker Tammy Abraham scored their opener.
Matchday 5 ✅
Result of the day?#UEL
— UEFA Europa League (@EuropaLeague) October 27, 2022
Meanwhile Arsenal have to quickly put Thursday’s disappointing 2-0 Europa League defeat at PSV Eindhoven behind them as they face a hectic fixture schedule, manager Mikel Arteta said.
PSV advanced to the knockout stage of Europe’s second-tier competition following goals from Joey Veerman and Luuk De Jong. The result ended Arsenal’s 100 per cent start to Group A, though they had already sealed a place in the top two before the loss.
Arteta’s side face two home games in the next seven days -against Nottingham Forest in the Premier League on Sunday then FC Zurich in their final Europa League group game on Thursday.
“I’m very disappointed. It’s the end of a long run where we won a lot of games and today is our first defeat (since the start of September) and we have to reset,” Arteta said.
Manchester United won 3-1 at home to Arsenal on September 3 to inflcit their only Premier League defeat so far this season.
“Congratulations to PSV – they were the better team today. We were nowhere near our level and we know that in Europe, it’s very difficult to win (then),” added Arteta.
“We’re disappointed tonight but there’s no time to feel sorry for ourselves. We have to react. On Sunday, we have a really important game, and then we’ll look at Zurich.
“We have to be much better than we were today. We knew what they were trying to do and the way we executed certain actions, the way we competed, it wasn’t good enough.”