Dutch striker Memphis Depay shone in his first begin for Atletico Madrid as he scored twice in a 6-1 thrashing of Sevilla, who was lowered to 10 males late on, in LaLiga on Saturday.
Substitute Alvaro Morata additionally bagged a brace as Atletico seized the chance to go third after Real Sociedad drew at residence 0-0 towards lowly Cadiz on Friday, leapfrogging the Basque facet within the standings and climbing to 45 factors.
Sociedad is now fourth on 44 factors, whereas holder Real Madrid is second on 52 factors, seven behind chief Barcelona on 59 factors, each with a recreation in hand.
Winless in its final three video games, Sevilla is sixteenth on 25 factors, just one level away from the relegation zone.
Atletico delivered arguably its finest exhibiting of the season on an evening it was celebrating Diego Simeone’s 613th recreation as its coach, surpassing membership legend Luis Aragones (612) to turn out to be the supervisor with extra video games with the identical staff within the historical past of Spanish soccer.
Sevilla performed a five-man defence however couldn’t take care of the relentless depth of Atletico who was led by an impressed pair in Depay and Antoine Griezmann.
The two related twice in three minutes to present the hosts a two-goal lead earlier than the half-hour mark.
Starting his first recreation for Atletico since arriving from Barcelona in January, Depay recovered the ball in midfield, gave it to Griezmann and ran up entrance to obtain an extended go from the French ahead earlier than slotting previous the goalkeeper within the twenty third minute.
Three minutes later, Depay was on the top of a intelligent mixture between Griezmann and Marcos Llorente to unleash a thunderous strike into the higher left nook from simply exterior the field.
When Atletico was in full management, Youssef En Nesyri was fast sufficient to beat goalkeeper Jan Oblak contained in the field and hit again for Sevilla from shut vary within the thirty ninth.
But Atletico didn’t take its foot off the fuel after the break and Griezmann scored the third purpose with a superb shot from vary.
“It was an important day for Simeone and I wanted it to be a magical day also for the fans and for my teammates,” Griezmann informed Movistar Plus.
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“When I saw the result from Real Sociedad on Friday I was nervous, I wanted to seize the opportunity to leapfrog them. I’m really happy that we did it.”
Yannick Carrasco prolonged Atletico’s benefit within the 69th minute, earlier than Ivan Rakitic missed a penalty, hitting the submit from the spot.
Substitute Morata within the 76th and 92nd minutes delivered the ultimate blows to a hopeless Sevilla, who had Pape Alassane Gueye despatched off within the 81st minute after receiving his second yellow card of the match.
