Europa League: Fulham 3 Dnipro 0

A Clint Dempsey brace helped Fulham defeat Ukrainian side Dnipro 3-0 in the first leg of their Europa League playoff at Craven Cottage.

Aaron Hughes opened the scoring from close range after 38 minutes of Thursday’s match.

And USA international Dempsey made it 2-0 with his first shortly before the interval, before adding a second to complete the scoring four minutes after the restart.

Fulham manager Martin Jol left out Andy Johnson and John Arne Riise ahead of Sunday’s English Premier League match at Wolverhampton Wanderers.

They joined Philippe Senderos on the bench, while Pajtim Kasami made his debut after joining from Palermo last month.

And it was the new man who enjoyed Fulham’s first sight of goal, a shot powered straight at Dnipro goalkeeper Jan Lastuvka.

A second opportunity came from the head of Steve Sidwell, which also failed to trouble the visitors’ stopper.

After those early exchanges, chances proved scarce through the first half, but with seven minutes remaining before half-time, the hosts did enough to break the deadlock.

Damien Duff played a corner kick short to Matthew Briggs and Hughes got himself on the end of the youngster’s low cross, guiding the ball into the far corner for 1-0.

It took just four minutes for Fulham to double their lead.

Stephen Kelly pulled the ball back for Sidwell on the right side of the Dnipro area, and the midfielder followed up with a perfect cross for Dempsey to slot home unmarked.

Fulham picked up where they left off in the second half, making it 3-0 on 49 minutes.

Dempsey was the man on target again, meeting a well-flighted cross from Kasami with a powerful header to complete his brace.

Dnipro failed to test the Fulham defence for much of the match, restricted to the occasional corner from which they never threatened.

The visitors came closest on 76 minutes, when Nikola Kalinic danced his way through the Fulham defence and into the six-yard box.

But the striker was overwhelmed with defenders and lost control of the ball, which subsequently rolled to a grateful Mark Schwarzer in the Fulham goal.

The hosts might have been 4-0 up three minutes from time, when Dempsey struck a drifting cross in for Kasami at the back-post.

But the Swiss attacker slid in off balance and failed to hit the target, passing up the chance of a debut strike.