Standard Liege 1-0 Panathinaikos

Dieudonne Mbokani scored the only goal of the game as Standard Liege completed a comfortable passage into the last eight of the Europa League with a home win over Panathinaikos.

The Belgian champions had done most of the hard work in the first leg in Greece when they won 3-1 and dominated the return to deservedly progress.

Mbokani claimed his goal in first-half injury time when goalkeeper Sinan Bolat's long clearance was allowed to run through to the Congo striker to slide home from 12 yards.

In the build up to the match Pana coach Nikos Nioplias claimed his side were better than Standard and that they could overcome the two-goal deficit to progress.

But the Greek side rarely threatened in the opening half as Standard stamped their authority on the game.

Pana goalkeeper Alexandros Tzorvas was kept busy in the early stages, making his first save after three minutes when he tipped a Mehdi Carcela-Gonzalez shot from the centre of the area past the post.

Tzorvas then pushed a header from Mbokani wide five minutes later before clearing the ensuing corner to safety.

The visitors' first shot on target arrived after 12 minutes when Kostas Katsouranis headed into the arms of Bolat.

Standard replied with a string of chances with Mbokani firing wide before Tzorvas saved long-range efforts from Igor De Camargo and Wilfried Dalmat.

Despite Standard controlling possession, they almost fell behind three minutes before half-time.

France striker Djibril Cisse won a free-kick just outside the area and Giorgos Karagounis' pin-point delivery picked out Dimitris Salpingidis.

His header came back off the post before Karagounis saw his follow-up strike tipped wide by Bolat.

Standard deservedly led at the break following some slack defending from the visitors.

There was little danger when Bolat cleared from his own half, but the ball was allowed to run through to Mbokani, who made full use of the defence's hesitation to fire his side ahead from 12 yards.

It took the sting out of Pana heading into the second half and Standard sat back and comfortably defended their advantage.

Gilberto Silva and Sebastian Leto both forced saves from Bolat, but the home side were never in any danger of failing to secure their place in the quarter-finals.