St Johnstone fall short against Galatasaray as Celtic go through
St Johnstone suffered a 5-3 Europa League exit to Galatasaray at McDiarmid Park.
Scotland’s domestic double cup winners had drawn 1-1 with the visitors in the first leg of their Europa League third qualifying round in Istanbul last week but the second leg proved just too much.
Striker Mbaye Diagne put the visitors ahead on the half-hour mark but Saints levelled seven minutes later when keeper Ismail Cipe, under pressure from striker Chris Kane, was unable to keep the ball from crossing the line.
Further goals from Kerem Akturkoglu, Sofiane Feghouli and substitute Emre Kilinc made it 4-1 before Michael O’Halloran pulled a goal back in added time to make it 4-2.
Callum Davidson, the Saints manager, said: “The players are disappointed. They are footballers and they want to win. I said in the dressing room, you can walk out the stadium with your heads held high. It was a great tie for us, a marquee tie and I thought we performed to a very good level.
“If you had told me two hours of football and we would be all square with Galatasaray, obviously at that point I couldn’t be any happier. A couple of weeks ago they were trying to qualify for the Champions League and a team like St Johnstone took them that far into the tie.”
Next week, Saints will meet LASK of Austria for a place in the Conference League groups.
David Turnbull hit a double as Celtic swept to a 3-0 Europa League victory over Jablonec in front of a raucous
Parkhead crowd.
Turnbull slotted his first goal of the season midway through the first half before producing one of his trademark long-range efforts after the break. James Forrest wrapped up a 7-2 aggregate victory which sent Celtic through to a play-off against AZ Alkmaar.
Hibernian’s European adventure is over after they lost their Europa Conference League third-round qualifier against Rijeka.
A 1-1 draw at Easter Road had given Jack Ross’s side hope of progressing, but a 4-1 defeat in Croatia in the second leg on Thursday saw the Edinburgh club eliminated 5-2 on aggregate. It was going well until midway through the second half, when – with the score at 1-1 on the night after Kyle Magennis had cancelled out Domagoj Pavicic’s opener for the hosts – Darren McGregor was shown a red card.
Playing with 10 men proved too much for Hibs and Rijeka wasted no time in making full use of their numerical advantage, as Issah Abass struck and Paul McGinn netted an own goal before Denis Busnja completed the scoring in injury time.
Aberdeen are a match away from the Europa Conference League groups after a Ryan Hedges double earned them a 2-1 win over Breidablik of Iceland and a 5-3 victory on aggregate. They will face Qarabag of Azerbaijan next week in a play-off.