Atletico Madrid slip to sixth in La Liga with defeat to Villarreal

Villarreal have defeated Atletico Madrid 3-0 at El Madrigal to climb above their opponents and into fourth place in the La Liga standings.

The Yellow Submarine found the net twice in the first half and once late on to make it seven points from the last 18 on offer, taking advantage of another slack Atletico display which sees Diego Simeone's men slip down to sixth.

Both sides matched each other in the opening 15 minutes of the game, but it was Atleti who came close to making a breakthrough a quarter of the way through when Koke saw his attempt come back off the post.

Soon after that near miss Villarreal were ahead, with Manuel Trigueros making the most of some poor play at the back from the visitors to charge into the box and pick out the bottom corner of the net.

Simeone made a forced change immediately after that setback, bringing on Saul Niguez for Tiago Mendes, and it almost had the desired effect as Antoine Griezmann was only denied by a smart Sergio Asenjo save up the other end.

Villarreal had a second prior to the interval, though, as Jonathan dos Santos had the task of tapping in from close range after Jan Oblak failed to deal with a simple cross into the box, which would lead to him also making way due to injury.

The closest the Rojiblancos came to pulling one back in the remainder came via shots from Griezmann and Niguez, neither of which could trouble Asenjo between the Villarreal sticks.

An incredibly frustrating night for Simeone got even worse after Roberto Soriano finished past back-up keeper Miguel Angel Moya from the edge of the box in the dying stages to add a third.