Eibar break Villarreal’s undefeated streak

Mateo Musacchio had said in midweek we were taking more chances on defense under Fran Escriba, playing to support the attack more — and today, Villarreal got burned by doing so.

The Submarine’s only goal came from Bruno Soriano, whose penalty gave Villarreal a 1-0 lead shortly before halftime as Sansone was tripped by Florian Lejeune.

Ex-Villarreal B man Lejeune made amends when he headed a ball down to Ivan Ramis, who slotted past Asenjo to tie things up with 10 minutes left. The play of the match, arguably, came shortly afterward, inthe 84th minute—with Villarreal pushing for a winner, Cedric Bakambu was played in by Santos Borré, but the Congolese striker’s header went wide of the far post, when putting the ball virtually anywhere else would have produced a goal.

Villarreal continued to push for the winner, but were burned with three minutes to go in the match—an attempted through ball to Bakambu from Castillejo was cut out, all the Villarreal outfield players were in the Eibar half and Castillejo was out of position to cover the first pass whipped down our right wing. A 2-on-1 break ensued and Pedro Leon made no mistake.

On balance, yet another early kickoff where Villarreal didn’t play well, and it’s hard to argue Eibar didn’t deserve at least a point from this. Disappointing in that had we won we would have gone third; as it is, we’re fifth. Sometimes you pay the price for going all out, and sometimes you pay the price for a big miss late in the match. That happened today.

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