La Liga: Rayo Vallecano defeat Atletico Madrid 3-0

Rayo Vallecano cruised to an impressive 3-0 win over Atletico Madrid on Sunday in La Liga, dealing a major blow to Diego Simeone’s side in the title race.

The defeat leaves Atletico 15 points behind league leaders Real Madrid and drops them to fourth place on the table.

The match was played at Butarque, home of CD Leganes, after pitch issues at Rayo’s Vallecas ground forced a venue change.

Fran Perez, Oscar Valentin and Nobel Mendy were on target for Rayo, who dominated the encounter and fully deserved their victory.

The result was a sharp contrast to Atletico’s recent form, having beaten Spanish champions FC Barcelona 4-0 in the Copa del Rey just days earlier.

With the Spanish cup their best chance of silverware this season it has seemed that Atletico have lacked some focus in La Liga, and that was reflected in this humbling by their city rivals.

The Rojiblancos have not won in their last three league matches.

“It seems like the league has slipped away, we can’t lose games like this and we can’t play a game the way we did today,” angry Atletico goalkeeper Jan Oblak told DAZN.

“Competing like this is going to be to tough, you can’t choose your games, every game has to be played at the highest level…

“Today they were much better, congratulations to them, we lost and deserved to lose.”

Inigo Perez’s Rayo took the lead in the 40th minute when Fran Perez finished Andrei Ratiu’s cross, and Oscar Valentin doubled their advantage after Clement Lenglet gave the ball away.

Nobel Mendy netted the third in the 76th minute after some more poor Atletico defending to round off a miserable afternoon for Simeone’s side.

Rayo, whose players have complained about the way the club is being run in recent weeks, supported by the coaching staff, climbed up to 16th.

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