Salah penalty maintains Liverpool’s run at Girona, wins for Villa, Real, Bayern

Liverpool maintained their 100% record in this season's Champions League and have a healthy lead at the top of the standings after a 1-0 win at Girona on Tuesday, with the only goal of the game coming from Mohamed Salah's second-half penalty.

A sixth win from six puts Liverpool, already guaranteed at least a playoff place before kickoff, on 18 points, five ahead of Bayer Leverkusen, Aston Villa, Inter Milan and Brest, while Girona are in 30th place on three points.

Girona suffered their fifth defeat of the competition but made Liverpool work for the victory and in the opening half had chances to take the lead but were foiled by the visitors' keeper Alisson.

Liverpool struggled against a side happy to sit back but found the breakthrough from the penalty spot with Salah converting in the 63rd minute after Luis Diaz was fouled.

“Six wins out of six, you can't ask for much better than that. It's not easy to do or there would be more teams doing it,” Liverpool defender Andy Robertson said.

“We've played a lot better than tonight, we weren't at our highest level, but at this point it's about winning the games and securing qualification.”

A Donny van de Beek foul on Diaz gave Salah his chance from the spot. The Egyptian missed a penalty in Liverpool's last Champions League game against Real Madrid, but made no mistake this time sending the keeper the wrong way and the ball into the bottom corner.

Aston Villa substitutes Jhon Duran and Ross Barkley bagged second-half goals to salvage a 3-2 victory over RB Leipzig in a match marked by a stunning error from keeper Emi Martinez that gifted Leipzig a goal.

With 13 points after six games, Unai Emery's men are just a win away from booking their berth in the Champions League last 16.

John McGinn put Villa on the scoresheet inside three minutes when he fired in Ollie Watkins's header past Peter Gulacsi. But Lois Openda levelled against the run of play in the 27th minute when Martinez ventured well out of his net but misjudged the bounce of the ball, allowing Openda to nudge it past him and score.

Duran put the visitors up in the 52nd minute when he latched on to a pass from Youri Tielemans before unleashing a blistering shot from nearly 30 metres out.

The home side levelled 10 minutes later when Openda floated the ball to the back post for Christoph Baumgartner to steer in with a volley. But, two minutes after he entered the game, Barkley bagged the winner in the 85th when his long shot took a big deflection off defender Lukas Klostermann and went in. 

Michael Olise netted a second-half brace as Bayern Munich came back from conceding an early goal to win 5-1 against Shakhtar Donetsk, their first away victory in this season's competition.

Shakhtar went ahead in the fifth minute through Kevin but Bayern levelled six minutes later with Konrad Laimer scoring and they took the lead with a Thomas Mueller goal on the stroke of half time.

A penalty converted by Olise in the 70th minute eased the Bayern nerves before Jamal Musiala added a fourth goal three minutes from time and Olise netted again in added time to round off the win.

Bayern's third successive win moves them up to eighth in the standings on 12 points while Shakhtar are in 27th on four points. (Reporting by Trevor Stynes; editing by Clare Fallon)

A fine finish from Goncalo Ramos, a goal from Nuno Mendes and a late strike from Desire Doue gave Paris St-Germain a vital victory, as they beat RB Salzburg 3-0 on Tuesday to move into the playoff spots.

Real Madrid got a much-needed 3-2 win at Atalanta thanks to goals from Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Jr and Jude Bellingham as the holders snapped a two-game loosing run in the competition.