Blackburn crash out of Uefa Cup
Mark Hughes will be dissapointed with his players
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Thursday, 04, Oct 2007 10:59
Blackburn failed to make it into the group stages of the Uefa Cup as they lost 3-2 on aggregate to Greek side Larissa, despite winning the second-leg 2-1 at Ewood Park this evening.
Mark Hughes' men had a tough job on their hands as they were 2-0 down from the first-leg, but their task was made even harder after just 12 minutes when Cleyton found space inside the Blackburn goal to score for Larissa.
Matt Derbyshire converted from the penalty spot early in the second half after David Dunn was brought down by the Larissa keeper. And when defender Stephen Warnock scored after 55 minutes, Blackburn needed two more goals to go through.
But although the rest of the game was one way traffic towards the Larissa goal, Blackburn failed to score and disappointingly went out of a competition they were expected to do well in.
Meanwhile, Bolton manager Sammy Lee rested seven players from the team that played Derby at the weekend, but his side still managed to scrape to 1-0 win over Macedonian side Rabotnicki at the Reebok Stadium and go through 2-1 on aggregate.
Lee's second-string side created very little going forward and it was left to substitute Nicolas Anelka to score the wining goal. Anelka headed home with his first touch of the game as he got onto the end of a Stelios Giannakopoulos cross.
A battling Aberdeen side reached the group stages of the Uefa Cup after holding onto a 1-1 draw away to Dnipro to go through on away goals after the first leg finished goalless.
Darren Mackie latched onto a Richard Foster cross to score Aberdeen's goal, and although Dnipro equalised through Andriy Vorobey, the Scottish team held on for a memorable result.