Villarreal toss away the prize in Sevilla

This hurts.  Villarreal probably deserved three points on the day, but came away with nothing after a harsh penalty in injury time handed Sevilla a 2-1 win.

Villarreal created more shots on the day-- 11 to 8-- had chances to score before Luciano Vietto gave the Submarine a lead with 10 minutes remaining, neatly chipping the keeper after receiving a pass from Cani (both came on as substitutes midway through the second half).

However, Sevilla pressed for an equalizer and Villarreal crumbled--an error from Gabriel, failing to clear a fairly speculative cross into the middle of the box, gave Denis Suarez the opportunity to put the ball past Sergio Asenjo, and as if that wasn't cruel enough, in injury time (the second of five played) the home side were awarded a penalty when Gio dos Santos was adjudged to have tripped Tremoulinas just inside the box.  If you watch the highlights (here) at about 2 minutes in, you can see various replays.  There was contact, but was it inside the area?  and was it a flop on the part of the Sevilla player?  If this play had involved Barcelona or Real Madrid, the papers would be discussing it for days, but since it was only Villarreal involved, it'll soon be forgotten.

With the loss, we fall to 8th place, with 14 points from 9 matches.  Admittedly we have played some tough clubs already, but losing these points only illustrates why we need to win matches on the road against clubs like Eibar and Granada instead of drawing.   On form, we deserve to be higher than we are, but we are having a hard time scoring consistently--and our defense, though doing its best in the face of a tremendous injury bug, can't be counted on to preserve things.

One other unfortunate note was that Marcelino (who you'll recall formally coached at Sevilla) was abused by some in the crowd after the match, who evidently thought his celebration of Vietto's goal was over the top.

Next up, Valencia at El Madrigal!   Endavant.