Villarreal 4-1 Alavés: Love that home cooking!!

Villarreal defeated Alavés 4-1 at the Cerámica—the final scoreline was a bit flattering given that two of the goals came in the last 10 minutes, rather like the Betis match.

First half was almost all Villarreal—an Ekambi goal from a Gerard pass was the only scoring though. Beautiful interplay between Gerard/Ekambi/Moi/Santi, and Alberto Moreno was good too.

Alavés came out from halftime with a bit more purpose and scored an equalizer from a Lucas bicycle kick. First time really that Lucas and Joselu had linked together well.

Yet again, subs turned the game in the last half-hour. Samu Chukwueze came on first, and immediately created danger for Alaves. He was part of an attack that ended with Santi beating the keeper but not his left post, and our second attack ended in an Ekambi goal (assist by Moi) but it was Samu’s crossfield pass to Moi that opened things up to start with.

Alavés can take some heart from minutes 46-65, but after that it was pretty much all Villarreal again.

MoTM: Too many to choose from, but Gerard for me, then Moi, Toko, Santi all very close behind.

Differences between last season and this season? here are a few....

(1) last season we had three consecutive home wins in the league...uh...never. Last time was April-May 2018 (Leganés, Celta, Valencia)

(2) last season we picked up our 17th point in January (round 18, against our next opponent, Eibar, with a 0-0 away draw)

(3) we have 24 goals in 10 matches. Last season we scored our 24th goal in our 24th match, the 3-0 win against Sevilla.

Endavant!!