Europa League Round-up:Liverpool, Manchester City and Liverpool all recorded wins in their Europa League Play-off first leg games this evening while Aston Villa were held to an away draw against Rapid Vienna.
Ryan Babel handed Liverpool a 1-0 win over Turkish Cup winners Trabzonspor in their first leg encounter at Anfield. The Dutchman, linked with a move to Wolfsburg this week, struck in first-half injury time before promptly being substituted.
Liverpool should have won more convincingly but Joe Cole's miserable week continued - after being sent off against Arsenal on Sunday - as he had a second-half penalty saved.
He was quick to shoulder the blame and said it was a long time since he last missed a penalty. "It was a bad penalty. It was pre-determined that I'd take it but you can't dwell on those things. It was a bad penalty but we won 1-0 so we'll take the positives from that."
On his new playmaking role for Liverpool, Cole added: "It's nice. I'm finding my feet in there. It's my job to do that, to make goals, and it was nice to do that for Ryan tonight. He's a terrific player. I'm enjoying my time here, I've had a decent start."
Mario Balotelli marked his debut for Manchester City with the winner in their Europa League clash with Timisoara in Romania.
The former Inter Milan striker's registration was only received by Uefa on deadline day.
Balotelli responded by stepping off the bench to sweep the ball home after 72 minutes to put City in the driving seat with the second leg to come at Eastlands next Thursday.
Aston Villa drew 1-1 against Rapid Vienna in the first leg of their tie. Caretaker boss Kevin MacDonald gave youth a chance as he looked to justify claims from some that he should be given the role vacated by Martin O'Neill on a full-time basis.
Marc Albrighton built on his impressive showing in their Premier League opener against West Ham with an assist for fellow youngster Barry Bannan to net early on in the first half.
However, Atdhe Nuhiu equalised for Rapid and they could well have won it had they not wasted several good chances to head to Villa Park with the lead.
Goals from Efrain Juarez and Georgios Samaras against Utrecht allowed Celtic to take a step closer to the group stages with a 2-0 win.
With the disappointment of their Champions League qualifying defeat to Braga still fresh in the memory, the Hoops were well aware a positive reaction was required against the Dutch outfit.
Juarez, who also netted against Braga at Parkhead, is clearly enjoying the European nights in front of a home crowd and bagged the opener, before Samaras added his own name to the scoresheet to put Celtic in the driving seat ahead of next week's return in Holland.
Tom Hateley's stunning stoppage-time free-kick gave 10-man Motherwell the away goal their enterprise deserved as a 2-1 defeat at Odense left them with every chance of progressing to the group stages.
Odense looked to have inflicted a fatal blow to Well's hopes after Peter Utaka caught them on the break in the 78th minute to add to Chris Sorensen's soft first-half opener.
Steve Jennings was then sent off but Hateley curled into the top corner from 25 yards with a retaken free-kick to send 500 travelling fans into delirium. Dundee United lost 1-0 at home to AEK Athens.
Europa League Play-off First Leg
(Selected results)
Celtic 2-0 FC Utrecht
FC Timisoara 0-1 Man City
Liverpool 1-0 Trabzonspor
Odense BK 2-1 Motherwell
Rapid Vienna 1-1 Aston Villa
Dundee United 0-1 AEK Athens