This Monday, Villarreal beat UD Las Palmas (3-1) in the last match of the eighth day of LaLiga EA Sports, a result with which Marcelino García Toral’s team, thanks to the goals from Pépé, Barry and Baena , rise to third position, while the Canarian team remains at the bottom.
Under the excellent direction of Alex Baena, who scored the last goal of the night and was able to make up for a missed penalty, the ‘Yellow Submarine’ showed its superiority to sign its third victory in the last four games and place third with 17 points, behind one from Real Madrid and four from the leader Barça. Luis Carrión’s men, for their part, still do not know the victory and have salvation within four units.
In an intense first half at the Estadio de la Cerámica, Fábio Silva warned the Canaries in the first minutes, after a great play by Alberto Moleiro, with a shot that narrowly missed, and Ilias Akhomach responded with a deflected shot from the front one.
Baena puts Villarreal third
Meanwhile, Diego Conde excelled with a double intervention before the half hour mark, first with a handball against Adnan Januzaj’s header and shortly after by catching a ball from Silva. The Castellón players, for their part, came close to scoring in a lateral foul in which Dinko Horkas took a saving foot to thwart Sergi Cardona’s shot. A couple of minutes later, the Croatian goalkeeper appeared again to save another shot from Akhomach.
Just before half-time, in a counterattack that began after another save by Conde, Thierno Barry stood in the Gran Canaria area and served for Nicolas Pépé, who controlled the ball only inside the area and sent the ball into the back of the net (min.44 ).
However, as soon as they returned from the locker room, 20 seconds into the second half, Luis Carrión’s men managed to neutralize the ‘Submarino’ goal; Januzaj put a great pass into space for Fábio Silva, who entered the area and chipped the ball over Diego Conde (min.46).
Baena puts Villarreal third
With almost no time to celebrate, in the 49th minute, the referee awarded a penalty for the locals for Horkas knocking down Pépé; Alex Baena stood in the eleven meters, but the goalkeeper of the Gran Canaria team guessed his intentions and deflected the ball, which after hitting the crossbar was cleared by the defense. The crossbar also thwarted, in the 55th minute, a strike from Januzaj.
Already in the 75th minute, the referee annulled a goal for offside by Barry, who found the net again shortly after, in the 82nd, in another play invalidated for the same reason. However, the referee went to the VAR and decided to consider the goal valid when he understood that the Frenchman was in the correct position in his header. In stoppage time, Baena sealed the duel with a run from the middle of the field to the rival area (min.97).
