Aston Villa beats Young Boys in Europa League

Donyell Malen scored twice for Aston Villa in a 2-1 win over Young Boys on Thursday in a Europa League game that was temporarily halted because of crowd trouble that included the forward being hit by an object thrown from the stands.

Malen appeared to be struck by a plastic cup after his 27th-minute goal — leaving a small cut on his head — and Young Boys fans again pelted the Villa players with thrown objects after the Dutch forward doubled the lead in the 42nd. Some away supporters then clashed with police, leading to the game being halted for about five minutes.

Young Boys captain Loris Bento pleaded with the fans to calm down and dozens of police officers were deployed in riot gear in front of the away end for the rest of the game, with no further incidents after halftime.  After a slow start to the season, Villa now has four straight wins in all competitions and a fourth victory from five in the Europa League.

Roma bounced back from two home losses as Neil El Aynaoui struck in the seventh minute and substitute Stephen El Shaarawy added another late to secure a 2-1 win over Midtjylland at Stadio Olimpico. Roma has nine points from five games after earlier home defeats to Lille and Viktoria Plzen. Midtjylland, which had won its first four games to surprisingly top the standings, pulled a goal back through substitute Paulinho in the 86th.

Also, Lille routed Dinamo Zagreb 4-0, 10-man Fenerbahce was held 1-1 by Ferencváros and Freiburg drew 0-0 at Plzen. Lyon ended a five-game winless streak across all competitions by demolishing Maccabi Tel Aviv 6-0 away with captain Corentin Tolisso contributing a hat trick.

Bologna eased past Salzburg 4-1, Real Betis beat Utrecht 2-1 and Stuttgart routed Go Ahead Eagles 4-0. Lyon, Midtjylland and Aston Villa all have 12 points atop the table. Rematches of European Cup finalsNottingham Forest produced a dominant display to beat Sweden’s Malmö FF 3-0 in a rematch of the 1979 European Cup final.

Malmo was a semi-professional team when it lost 1-0 in Munich to the English side, which also went on to retain the title the following year. The teams wore the same color schemes as in that final, with the hosts in all red and the visitors in pale blue shirts and white shorts, and Forest invited players from both 1979 teams to the City Ground to pose for a photo before kickoff.

Captain Ryan Yates gave Forest the lead with a curling shot in the 27th and started the move that led to the second with a header that was parried by goalkeeper Melker Elborg. Arnaud Kalimuendo scored from the rebound just before interval for his first goal for the club. Nikola Milenkovic added the third in the second half.

Forest was boosted by a 3-0 triumph over Liverpool at Anfield in the Premier League on Saturday and won for the second time in this season’s Europa League, under new coach Sean Dyche. Malmö is yet to win. Celtic came from a goal down to win 3-1 at Feyenoord in a rematch of the 1970 European Cup final won by the Dutch side.

Reo Hatate set up Hyunjun Yang to equalize for Celtic from a tight angle. Hatate put the hosts ahead still in the first half from the edge of the box after Daizen Maeda applied pressure to block a clearance. As the hosts pushed for an equalizer, substitute Benjamin Nygren replied with the third goal late.

Ayase Ueda opened the scoring early for Feyenoord. Porto scores after 19 seconds Gabriel Veiga gave Porto the lead against Nice just 19 seconds into their match from an attack right from the kick-off.

It was the sixth fastest goal in the Europa League, according to UEFA. Veiga burst into the area to double the advantage after half an hour. Samu made it 3-0 from the spot. Nice is the last team without a point in the competition after Rangers secured the first point for a home 1-1 draw with Braga.

Captain James Tavernier converted from the spot in the first half stoppage time for Rangers but Braga salvaged a draw despite it had Rodrigo Zalazar ejected eight minutes before Gabri Martínez equalized. Rangers Mohamed Diomande followed Zalazar in stopagge time.

Conference LeagueIn the third-tier Conference League, Crystal Palace was handed a second defeat from four games, 2-1 at Strasbourg, and two-time finalist Fiorentina was upset 1-0 at home by AEK Athens.