Villarreal crush Rayo to move second, Atletico beat Sevilla

Alberto Moleiro celebrates scoring his team’s second goal during the Spanish League football match between Villarreal CF and Rayo. (AFP pic)

BARCELONA: Villarreal continued their strong start to the La Liga season by thrashing Rayo Vallecano 4-0 to climb above Barcelona into second place provisionally on Saturday.

Atletico Madrid earned a comfortable 3-0 win over Sevilla to tighten their grip on fourth and pull level on points with Barca.

Champions Barcelona host Elche on Sunday and La Liga leaders Real Madrid welcome Valencia to the Santiago Bernabeu later Saturday.

Marcelino Garcia Toral’s Villarreal moved within four points of Madrid with their emphatic home win over Rayo.

Villarreal’s key man was playmaker Alberto Moleiro, who joined from Las Palmas in the summer. He scored a fine individual goal and set up another at the Estadio de la Ceramica.

“I’m very happy, I’m finding my form more and more, and my team-mates make things easy for me,” Moleiro told DAZN.

“We knew that (we could go second), we have to keep focusing on our next game.”

Veteran striker Gerard Moreno opened the scoring after 22 minutes, netting for the second consecutive game.

The 33-year-old forward escaped Pep Chavarria in the box with some clever footwork and fired into the far corner.

Moleiro added a superb second after the break, driving forward from his own half, and as Rayo stood off him, he slotted home from outside the area.

The midfielder teed up Santi Comesana for the third two minutes later.

Ayoze Perez grabbed his first goal of the season for Villarreal’s fourth, as he begins to find form after injury.

“We were not good in our defending, marking, it’s a game where we can keep learning,” said Rayo goalkeeper Augusto Batalla.

“We can’t go crazy because of a bad afternoon, that’s what today was and we have to continue.”

Atletico Madrid cruised to victory against Sevilla at the Metropolitano stadium with goals from Julian Alvarez, Thiago Almada and Antoine Griezmann. They pulled level with Barcelona on 22 points.

Diego Simeone’s side grew into the game but could not find a way past Odysseas Vlachodimos in the first half, while Nico Gonzalez also struck the post.

Atletico found the breakthrough when Tanguy Nianzou fouled Jose Gimenez in the area and Alvarez dispatched the resulting penalty.

Almada tucked away the second after good work by Giuliano Simeone and Griezmann stroked home a fine third late on. It was the French forward’s 200th goal in the Spanish top flight.

“The team have done good work in these last three games,” said Atletico captain Koke.

“We kept a clean sheet, which is very important for us and this part of our identity will help us fight for big things.”