Roman Pavlyuchenko's thunderous free-kick goal sent Tottenham Hotspur to the top of Group A on a promising night for British sides in the Europa League.
The Russian helped a largely second-string Spurs side edge Rubin Kazan 1-0 at White Hart Lane while Stoke City also took command of its group with a 3-0 home triumph over Maccabi Tel Aviv.
English Championship side Birmingham City were indebted to a last-minute effort by Kiwi forward Chris Wood which secured a 2-1 win at Belgium's Bruges to also bolster its hopes of winning its group.
Wood, a summer loan signing from West Bromwich Albion, struck with seconds left on the clock to make it two wins out of three for Chris Hughton's side as they went level on top of Group H with their beaten rivals.
Wood, who represented New Zealand at last year's World Cup finals, scored in the 10th minute of injury time to complete a comeback after Joseph Akpala had put the hosts ahead just three minutes.
David Murphy levelled with a neatly-taken goal on 26 minutes to cheer more than 5,000 travelling fans, who were dismayed to see their team drop out of the Premier League last May having only just lifted the League Cup under Hughton's predecessor Alex McLeish.
The added time followed treatment for Blues' defender Pablo Ibanez, who was earlier knocked unconscious in a collision with Akpala.
Group rivals Sporting Braga and Maribor parted 1-1 to leave Birmingham and Bruges both two points clear of the third-placed Slovenians.
The top three in each group qualify for last 32, where they will be joined by eight teams who finish third in Champions League group stages.
At the Britannia Stadium, early headers from Kenwyne Jones and Cameron Jerome, who was later sent off, and then a clincher from Ryan Shotton made it seven points from three games for the Potters.
Maccabi's Yoav Ziv was also sent off in strange circumstances after kicking his loose boot at the assisant referee.
Mark Schwarzer's Fulham was unable to emulate Birmingham's away-day success as the Cottagers crashed 1-0 on its Group K travels at Wisla Krakow of Poland with Israeli Dudu Biton netting the only goal.
Dutch outfit Twente won 4-1 at Denmark's Odense to establish a three-point lead at the top of the group but Fulham hang onto second spot after Odense's loss which gave Krakow its first points.
Scottish giants Celtic, European Cup winners in 1967, were held 1-1 at French side Rennes, who took the lead through Cha Du-ri's own-goal after half an hour.
Jo Ledley equalised midway through the second half to ensure Celtic still entertain albeit faint hopes of getting through from Group I, where they have two points from their three games to date, as do Rennes.
Udinese scored twice late on in Italy to see off Spaniards Atletico Madrid to go top of the group and leave its rivals just two points clear of the stragglers.
In Group J, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar netted twice as leaders Schalke swamped Cypriot side AEK Larnaca 5-0 away while Maccabi Haifa inflicted the same scoreline on former European champions Steaua Bucharest.
AFP
Tags: uefa-cup, soccer, sport, england, united-kingdom First posted October 21, 2011 09:07:00
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