Rubén Baraja’s team needed very little to completely undress the bottom team, who signed one of his worst collective performances of the course and who his new coach, the Argentine Sebastián Beccacece, has not managed to straighten.
He Elche He had a better staging than his rival, too stressed by his critical situation on the table.
The bottom team took the initiative and bottled the Valencia with strong pressure and several lateral crosses, although the visitor’s response could not have been more forceful on the first occasion in which he was able to shake off control.
Nico, after a corner kick, He finished off the ball with a header to the crossbar and Diakhaby was unable to convert the rebound into a goal after a good save by Badía.
After a few minutes of drop in tension, caused by the injury of Pere Bigas, who left the field on a stretcher after an action with Musah, Valencia found the goal in the simplest way possible.
A ball hit the center of the field was prolonged by Cavani’s head so that Lino, Without opposition from the defense, he faced Badía through the center to beat him on his way out.
Seconds later, Musah once again exposed the Elche defense with an action from the bottom line, but his back pass found no teammate to drive the ball into the net.
The goal reassured Valencia, who needed very little to show all the defensive deficiencies of the bottom team.
Elche assumed command of the game against a retired Valencia, who touched the goal again after a shot by Cenk that the goalkeeper of the Elche team took off with one foot.
The local team was proud to try to level the game, but shortly before the break Valencia doubled their advantage after a cross from Gayá that Gonzalo Verdú, in his attempt to get ahead of Cavani, sent into the net.
The second goal definitively sank Elche and unleashed the indignation of the Elche fans, that for the first time in months they scolded their players for the game displayed on their way to the locker room.
The local team tried improve his image in the first minutes of the second halfin which he approached the Valencian area, although without generating a single dangerous occasion.
Baraja’s team, withdrawn, appealed to tactical rigor so as not to get into trouble against an opponent without game or heart that Beccacece tried to awaken without much success with the changes.
The game was consumed without anything interesting happening near the areas due to the sheer impotence of Elche and the conformism of Valencia, full of homegrown players in the last minutes, who He managed to save a critical situation and regain self-esteem while waiting for more demanding battles.