Spurs, Man City qualify on good night for English clubs

English clubs shone in the Champions League on Wednesday as Tottenham humbled Real Madrid and Manchester City beat Napoli to secure their places in theknockout stageswithtwo games remaining.

Tottenham ended Real’s five-year unbeaten run in the Champions League group stage with a storming 3-1 at Wembley. Dele Alli scored twice on his return from a three-game suspension. City muscled its way to a 4-2 win overNapoli as Sergio Aguero took the club’s all-time scoring record.

Liverpool made it three wins from three for English clubs with a straightforward 3-0 victory over Slovenian outsiderMaribor. Liverpool can qualify by beating Sevilla in its next game.

Monaco and Leipzig risk elimination after theirGroup G rivals Besiktas and Porto picked up valuable points.

GROUP E

Liverpool wasn’t quite as imperious as in its previous 7-0 hammering of Maribor, but three second-half goals were enough for a win that makes the Reds highly likely to qualify.

That leaves Liverpool in first place, one point ahead of Sevilla, which beat Spartak Moscow 2-1 to gain a measure of revenge for its 5-1 loss in the Russian capital two weeks ago.

GROUP F

Manchester City made it fourwins fromfourwith victory in Naples as it qualified for the knockout stages for the fifth year in a row.

Shakhtar Donetsk hasn’t made it past the group stage since the 2014-15 season, but looks likely to do so this campaign after beating Feyenoord 3-1 to tighten its hold on second place.

GROUP G

Turkey’s Besiktas continued its strong group stage campaign with a 1-1 draw against Monaco that keeps it unbeaten.

With just two points from four games, Monaco is last in the group and facing an early exit. However, its prospects would have been very different if a shot by Keita Balde hadn’t been saved by Besiktas goalkeeper Fabri in stoppage time.

Aiming for its first appearance in the knockout phase, Besiktas now sits four points clear at the top from Porto. The Portuguese club beat Leipzig 3-1 tomove second in the group, two points ahead of the defeated German team, which is in its debut Champions League campaign.

GROUP H

Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane will face criticism from fans after a poor showing away to Tottenham.

Two goals from Dele Alli and one from Christian Eriksen gave Tottenhama commanding lead that ensured the London club qualified for the knockout stages for only the second time.

Cristiano Ronaldo’s 80thminute goal meant little outside this season’s Champions League goalscorer standings, which he leads by one goal.