PRAGUE-- AC Milan eased into the Europa League quarter-finals with a 3-1 victory at 10-man Slavia Prague on Thursday to secure a 7-3 aggregate win as West Ham United crushed German side Freiburg in a record triumph. Slavia's hopes of swiftly closing the gap from the 4-2 loss in the first leg were shattered after 20 minutes when captain Tomas Holes received a red card for a stamp on Milan's Davide Calabria. Christian Pulisic, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Rafael Leao scored in the first half to put seven-times European champions Milan in complete control of the tie. "Today, we controlled the game more, scored three goals, and the course of the match was quite clear," Milan manager Stefano Pioli said. The second half was uneventful until six minutes from time when Matej Jurasek claimed a consolation goal for Slavia. Milan faced a concern as keeper Mike Maignan was forced off the pitch early due to a knee injury. "He felt a pain in his knee, he was already better now. It doesn't seem like anything too worrying, let's see how she reacts tomorrow," Pioli said. West Ham overwhelmed Freiburg 5-0 thanks to goals from Lucas Paqueta, Jarrod Bowen, Aaron Cresswell and a brace from Mohammed Kudus to claim their biggest win in a major European competition and send them into the last eight 5-1 on aggregate. David Moyes, in his 250th match as West Ham manager, commended his team. "We looked like scoring tonight and looked the bigger threat. Obviously, we've got two or three exceptional individual players who helped us get goals. It was a brilliant performance for us to win by five," Moyes told UEFA.com. Benfica clinched their quarter-final spot with a 1-0 victory over Scottish side Rangers courtesy of Rafa Silva's strike in the 66th minute which secured a 3-2 aggregate win. Liverpool hammered Sparta Prague 6-1 on Thursday to storm into the Europa League quarter-finals 11-2 on aggregate while Bayer Leverkusen staged a dramatic turnaround to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat against Qarabag. Liverpool were 4-0 up within 14 minutes thanks to goals by Darwin Nunez, Bobby Clark, Mohamed Salah and Cody Gakpo. Serbian striker Veljko Birmancevic pulled one back for the visitors before the break, but Liverpool continued to dominate. "It was on us to decide how good a game it would be and obviously we enjoyed playing football, some fantastic goals as well early on. From that point on it becomes a difficult game, like how do you keep going?," Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp told TNT Sports. Leverkusen secured a 3-2 home victory over Azerbaijani team Qarabag, with Patrik Schick's stoppage-time brace ensuring a 5-4 aggregate win and extending Leverkusen's unbeaten run to 37 games. Brighton & Hove Albion's effort to bridge a four-goal deficit against AS Roma proved futile as they could only manage a 1-0 home victory, Danny Welbeck's curler a consolation in the Italain side's 4-1 aggregate win. "As I said before, nobody will be happy to play against Roma either in this competition. Looking at the options, whoever we get will be exciting," Roma coach Daniele De Rossi told Sky Sports Italia. Atalanta secured a hard-fought 2-1 home victory over Portuguese side Sporting, with Ademola Lookman and Gianluca Scamacca turning the match around for the hosts to seal a 3-2 aggregate win for the Italian team. Despite Villarreal's 3-1 home victory over Olympique de Marseille, featuring goals from Etienne Capoue, Alexander Sorloth and Yerson Mosquera, the French side secured a 5-3 aggregate win thanks to a stoppage-time strike from Jonathan Clauss. The draws for the Europa League quarter-finals, semi-finals, and final will take place at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland on Friday.
