Cluj booked their place in the knockout stages by defeating a makeshift Celtic side in Romania. Second-half goals from defender Andrei Burca and midfielder Damjan Djokovic inflicted Celtic's first Group E defeat.
Neil Lennon's side had already secured top spot in the group, so the manager made a number of changes, with 18-year-old Scott Robertson starting in midfield, and 16-year-old Karamoko Dembélé comimg on as a late substitute.
"Obviously I'm disappointed to lose the game but [I'm] very pleased with what I got out of the game," Lennon said. "Scott Robertson made his debut and had a terrific debut. For such a young player he showed such maturity and composure."
Mönchengladbach are top of the Bundesliga but their European campaign is over after defeat to Istanbul Basaksehir. Enzo Crivelli's last-gasp winner sent the Turkish side through, with Roma also sneaking through after a 2-2 draw with Wolfsberger.
In Group C, Getafe won their eliminator against Krasnodar 3-0, with all three goals coming in the last 15 minutes. Basel topped the group after a 2-0 win over Trabzonspor. In another decisive contest, Ludogorets edged through from Group H after drawing 1-1 with Ferencvaros
In Group A, Apoel surprised Sevilla, winning 1-0 in a game between two teams who had already qualified. In Group D, LASK Linz grabbed top spot from Sporting with an emphatic 3-0 win, while PSV and Rosenborg drew 1-1. In Group G, there were five goals in the first 33 minutes, and none after, as Porto beat Feyenoord 3-2 to top the group.
Malmö got the win they needed in a cross-border derby at Copenhagen, who still crept through after Dynamo Kyiv were held at home by Lugano. Elswhere, two goals from Joris Gnagnon earned Rennes victory over Lazio, ending the Italians' faint hopes of progress.
Steven Gerrard is about as downhearted as a chuffed person could be:
I’m very pleased. I think we certainly deserve it. I don’t think we were good tonight, in the second half. We created enough chances to have a bigger advantage, even at the end. I thought we stopped doing what we’re good at in the second half, which is either finding space or keeping the ball, and then it was just wave after wave, and it was direct, first balls and second balls. Credit to them, they never gave up. We didn’t expect them to. These were the dark horses in the group. A very difficult group, so credit to the boys getting out. Let’s give credit where it’s due, this club’s suffered a lot. It’s the first time we’ve had knockout football in Europe since 2011. This is another step in the right direction. I’m very pleased, I’m very proud but I won’t overcelebrate.
Given nothing attached to the Old Firm can be viewed in isolation, it was impossible to ignore a sense of redemption as Rangers - eventually - wandered into the Europa League’s last 32. The harrowing circumstances of a League Cup final defeat to Celtic just days earlier was - briefly at least - forgotten as Steven Gerrard delivered yet another indicator of progress at Ibrox. This marks the first time since season 2010-11 that Rangers have featured in Europe beyond Christmas. If ending Celtic’s domestic stranglehold is key to perceptions of Gerrard’s tenure, delivering returns on other fronts is wholly welcome, not least from a financial perspective.
Diogo Jota ensured Wolves finished their group campaign in style, springing from the bench to plunder a hat-trick in 12 minutes. Leander Dendoncker also found the net as Nuno Espírito Santo’s men blew away Besiktas with a powerful second-half performance.
Wolves’ ability to play like this even without several regular starters is one of the reasons why they can be confident of advancing further in this competition no matter whom they are pitted against in Monday’s draw for the knockout stages.
Paul Wilson was at Old Trafford. Here’s his report:
Mason Greenwood had a night to remember as Manchester United dismantled AZ Alkmaar’s challenge with a barrage of second half goals. The 18-year old-striker scored two of them and won a penalty for another as Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s side cantered to victory in their final Europa League game.
For 45 tortuous minutes such a free-scoring spectacle had appeared the last thing the evening might produce, but once United broke the deadlock their opponents capitulated alarmingly and Solskjær’s experimental selection was fully justified. The United manager can do no wrong at the moment, and though at first this encounter looked as though it might interrupt his sequence of wins it ended up the most emphatic of his three in a row.
All of which means that every British side in European competition this season has progressed through to the knockout stages of whatever competition they entered. Truly, this nation just keeps covering itself in glory. What? Oh.
Alkmaar were really very good for the best part of an hour at Old Trafford. Then the world emphatically crumbled around their ears, and they went from 0-0 in the 53rd minute to 4-0 in the 64th, since when they’ve been staggering about the pitch in a daze.
Goals just keep on coming in batches tonight. The latest pair have come in Belgrade, where Sadiq Umar put Partizan 4-0 up in the 76th minute and the highly-rated 18-year-old centre-back Strahinja Pavlovic took a few pounds off his asking price with an own-goal four minutes later.
3 - Diogo Jota is the first player to score a hat-trick after coming on as a substitute in the Europa League since Steven Gerrard for Liverpool against Napoli in November 2010. Hungry. pic.twitter.com/KMAb4uwAMz
There’s all sorts going on in Bratislava, where Khadfi Rharsalla gave Slovan a 2-1 lead over Braga in the 70th minute, Francisco Trincao equalised in the 72nd - the 19-year-old’s first senior goal - and a Vasil Bozhikov own-goal put Braga ahead in the 75th! This means that Braga lead Group K by a point, ahead of Wolves.
Trincao Francisco (centre) fires in Braga’s equaliser. Photograph: Jakub Gavlák/EPA
In other news, Paulo Otávio has put Wolfsburg ahead against Saint-Etienne. He did it 15 minutes ago, but this is the first chance I’ve had to tell you about it. They nevertheless remain second in Group I, behind Gent. The Belgians though now lead only 2-1, Denis Miroshinichenko having pulled one back for Oleksandriya.
Leander Denoncker finally gets his goal, heading in a right-wing corner in the 67th minute. Then two minutes later Pedro Rebocho tries to do a fancy trick on the left flank and is dispossessed, the ball’s crossed in and Jota converts for his hat-trick, completed within 13 minutes of him entering the fray!
Leander Dendoncker of Wolverhampton Wanderers scores his team’s third goal. Photograph: David Rogers/Getty Images
Deigo Jota slots home his hat-trick and Wolves’ fourth. Photograph: Nick Potts/PA
GOAL! Manchester United 4-0 AZ Alkmaar (Greenwood, 64 mins)
Another one! Mata passes to Greenwood, just to the right of the penalty area, and he cuts into the box before shooting low and just inside the near post!
Manchester United’s Mason Greenwood (right) scores his sides fourth goal. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA
Penalty! And GOAL! Manchester United 3-0 AZ Alkmaar (Mata, 62 mins)
Greenwood is bundled over by Clasie in the penalty area, as clear a penalty as you’re ever going to see. The keeper goes the right way, but Juan Mata’s penalty goes into the right-hand corner anyway!
Mason Greenwood of Manchester United is fouled resulting in a penalty. Photograph: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
Mata (centre) is congratulated by his teammates. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA
They’re not denied for long! Dendoncker, from 30 yards, produces a shot massively superior to either of the ones he mustered when facing an empty net, the keeper fingertips it into the post and it rebounds into the path of Jota, who slams it in! Jota only came on in the 56th minute, and he’s got two!
Wolverhampton Wanderers’ Diogo Jota. Photograph: Peter Cziborra/Action Images via Reuters
Wolves hit the post! From a left-wing corner the Besiktas keeper roars off his line again and gets nowhere near it, thus presenting Dendoncker with another open goal, which once again he misses. This time he hits the meat of a post, though, so he’s getting closer.
GOAL! Manchester United 2-0 A| Alkmaar (Greenwood, 58 mins)
Fredrik Midtsjo wins the ball on his right wing and embarks on a ludicrously misguided jog infield, which ends when he’s bang central, 10 yards outside his area, and James Garner tackles him. The ball rolls to Greenwood, who takes one touch and then hits a low left-footer into the corner!
Like Ashley Young before him, Mason Greenwood celebrates with a knee slide. Photograph: John Peters/Manchester United via Getty Images
Pereira brilliantly skills his way past two opponents at the left-hand corner flag, backheeling to Mata. He gives it back and Pereira slides infield to Matic, whose first-time ball from just outside the box picks out Mata, who has been busy cutting into a congested penalty area from the left. The Spaniard controls and slides across goal, and though Martial hasn’t anticipated it, meaning the ball rolls across goal without anyone tapping it in, Young pops up well beyond the far post to thunder it into the roof of the net from an acute angle!
And a chance for Manchester United! Greenwood passes infield from the right to Martial, who has time to control and then shoot, but somehow he contrives to shoot over the bar!
Chance for Wolves! A totally bonkers miss, really, from Dendoncker, who was picked out with a cross from the left. The keeper roared off his line for absolutely no good reason, and any kind of header on target would have gone in, but somehow Dendoncker’s effort went away from goal rather than towards it, and Besiktas clear.
Chance for AZ! Idrissi’s low cross from the left seemed to miraculously evade several United legs on its way to Stengs, who is probably as astonished as everybody else that the ball found its way through to him, and diverts it too close to Romero.
The players are on their way back out. Wolves’ are all lined up on the touchline, presumably as part of a half-timely warm-up routine and not because they’ve all been subbed.
After forty-one minutes without a goal, there have been two in three minutes in Bratislava, where Slovan took the lead through Andraz Sporar in the 42nd minute and Rui Fonte equalised in the 44th. They do seem to be coming in clusters today.
“Nice to see Matic getting a run out,” writes Matt Dony. It is his first start, or indeed appearance of any sort, since United last played AZ, back on 3 October. “He can play himself into some form, and hit the ground running for Spurs in January when Mourinho inevitably buys him.”
There are a couple of goals I haven’t told you about, both scored by German teams. Marcus Thuram has given Borussia Monchengladbach a 1-0 lead at home to Istanbul Basaksehir, and Danny Da Costa has equalised for Eintracht Franfurt against Guimaraes.
Yet another goal at Porto, who have retaken the lead through Tiquinho. Rangers still lead the group, and every time I glance at the feed of their game they have just missed a great chance to extend their advantage.
Astana already had the worst goal difference in the Europa League and it’s an honour they look determined to keep. They’re now 3-0 down at Partizan Belgrade, Takuma Asano with the third.
The reason I say it’s all going on in Group G, incidentally, is that having been 2-0 up Porto conceded two goals in three minutes to get pegged back to 2-2 at home to Feyenoord, so had already lost group leadership even before Rangers scored. As it stands, Rangers have a three-point lead at the top!
It’s all going on in Group G! Young Boys give the ball away and it’s immediately popped through to Morelos. Sörensen screams across to cut it out but makes a complete hash of it, and suddenly Morelos is entirely free! There’s not even anyone there to pretend to be fouled by, so he concentrates on the task in hand and slides a shot past the keeper!
Rangers’ Alfredo Morelos scores their first goal. Photograph: Jason Cairnduff/Action Images via Reuters
Jody Lukoki has put Ludogorets a goal up against Ferencvaros. According to Wikipedia his nickname is The Son of the Wind. I like this nickname. It certainly beats Keano or Gibbsy.
Ludogorets Razgrad’s Jody Lukoki scores their first goal. Photograph: Stoyan Nenov/Reuters
Another Roma player has scored, though Umar Sadiq is on loan at Partizan Belgrade, and has put them 2-0 up against Astana in the other game in United’s group.
At Ibrox, the now familiar sight of Morelos tumbling inside the penalty area, and a referee completely ignoring him. Then he’s played through on the right side of the area, but his shot hits the goalkeeper’s legs.
It must have been the flares in Glasgow, because visibility is now excellent. There have been no goals there, but elsewhere in Group G Luiz Diaz has given Porto the lead against Feyenoord, with the Portuguese side thus leapfrogging Rangers to the top of the group. And they’ve just scored again! That’s two in three minutes, the young left-back Tyrell Malacia putting into his own net. That leaves Rangers in second place, but potentially one goal from elimination.
At Old Trafford, Idrissi is giving Young a bit of an examination, and it’s far from clear that United’s captain is going to pass it. AZ have had 63% of possession so far, with nearly 15 minutes played, and the home crowd is already sounding a little quiet.
In Rome, Diego Perotti has given the home side the lead over Wolfsberger from the penalty spot! And as I type that Wolsberger equalise, thanks to Alessandro Florenzi’s own-goal!
A goal in Group I, where Gent’s Laurent Depoitre has given them a seventh-minute lead over Oleksandriya, and thus placed them very much in the driving seat in the battle for group victory.
