Morientes makes most of mission for Monaco

Former Real Madrid midfielder Fernando Morientes produced a brace of goals for Monaco which helped secure a crushing 4-0 win over AEK Athens in their Champions League group C clash.

Morientes, who moved to Didier Deschamps principality side at the start of the season, opened the scoring in Monaco's 2-1 win over PSV Eindhoven a fortnight ago and was again the man of the night as Monaco romped all over their Greek visitors.

Despite a nervous start - with Cypriot forward Yiannis Okkas missing two clear cut chances in the opening minutes - the French league leaders soon got into their stride and had secured a 2-0 lead by the interval.

Okkas, who found himself all alone with only Flavio Roma to beat in the Monaco goal, misfired his shot in the opening minute and only five minutes later he came agonisingly close with a close-range header which rebounded off Roma's near post.

That opening spell had Deschamps in a sweat and Monaco briefly tightened up at the back before they grabbed the opening themselves.

Midfielder Ludovic Giuly, a fringe France international who is one of the French league's most feared strikers of the ball, grabbed his chance with both hands when it came after a defensive mix-up in the AEK area.

Monaco defender Patrice Evra sent in a ball from the right and after the tall Emmanuel Adebayor tangled with the AEK keeper Dionisios Hiotis the ball fell to Giuly on the left of goal, the little Corsican ripping a 20-yard shot through the keeper's legs and into the net.

Four minutes later Morientes added to Giuly's opener after latching on to a rebound from the crossbar, following a header by Sebastien Squillaci, to compound the visitors' problems at the back.

Ahead of the half-time whistle Monaco had a chance to wrap things up definitively however both Jerome Rothen, on the half hour mark, and Morientes on the stroke of half-time squandered chances.

In the second half Monaco's domination continued, with Morientes picking up where he left off in the 56th minute to score his second of the match following another telling corner struck by Rothen.

AEK failed to recover from the onslaught and their frustration was seen in a vicious tackle by Kofi Amponsah on Evra, which earned the AEK man a lucky yellow card.

In the latter stages AEK's Okkas came close with only Roma's acrobatics saving the hosts, who wrapped things up in the 86th minute with a goal from Croat Dado Prso.