Aiden McGeady celebrated St Patrick’s Day in style by helping Spartak Moscow into the last eight of the Europa League at the expense of Ajax.
Valeri Karpin’s side refused to sit on their one goal lead from the first leg and buried the Dutch outfit 3-0 on the night.
First half goals from Welliton and Dmitri Kombarov put Spartak in the driving seat with Alex completing the scoring nine minutes into the second half.
“We watched the video of the first half of the first leg and everyone was pretty disappointed, and so was the manager,” the fomer Celt admitted.
“We wanted to put something right tonight and everyone was buzzing around in the first half and trying to get in Ajax’s faces, trying to make sure they were not comfortable on the ball while we just played with freedom.
“After the first game Ajax were the better team but we knew ourselves we were just as good if not better if we played to our strengths, and tonight I think we did that.
Elsewhere in the competition the three British clubs drew a blank with Rangers, Liverpool and Manchester City all dumped out of the competition as PSV Eindhoven, Braga and Dinomo Kiev progressed towards Dublin.
Rangers lost out to a 14th minute goal from Jeremain Lens which was enough to see the Dutch side through in Walter Smith’s final European tie as Rangers manager.
Manchester City did beat Dinamo Kiev 1-0 but Alexsander Kolorov’s 39th minute goal wasn’t enough to overcome the Ukrainians two goal lead from the first leg.
At Anfield Liverpool saw their last chance of a trophy disappear with Andy Carroll unable to find the net allowing Braga through on a 1-0 aggregate
Benfica, FC Twente, Vilareal and Porto will also be in tomorrow’s draw for the quarter and semi finals which takes place at 11am GMT.
The double standards of the SFA.
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