Sevilla survive red card and Espanyol come back to claim big win

As far as starts to a game go, Sevilla’s couldn’t possibly have gone much better. On the back of their joint-worst four match start to a LaLiga season in history, Los Nervionenses flew out of the traps and stunned the hosts inside two minutes when Érik Lamela tip-toed into the area before slotting the ball through the legs of Álvaro Fernández to hand Sevilla the lead. Espanyol’s response was fairly muted and it was in fact Sevilla who struck again, when some penalty box pinball after Espanyol failed to clear a corner dropped kindly for José Ángel Carmona to tap home on his first league start of the season.

Espanyol’s goalmouth openings were few and far between in the first half, but Joselu did almost half the deficit for the hosts on the stroke of HT, but he saw his effort come crashing back off the post. Such is the cruel nature of football, Espanyol were left to rue their missed chance as Carmona added a third for Sevilla before the break, capitalising upon some embarrassingly bad defending from Leandro Cabrera to prod home his second of the afternoon. Unbelievably, the half wasn’t done there! Marcos Acuña handled in the area and Joselu stepped forward to redeem his earlier miss and stroke home an Espanyol consolation.

See stats from the match at Flashscore

Despite holding a 3-0 advantage moments before HT, Espanyol bagged another shortly after the break to get within a goal of Sevilla. Martin Braithwaite’s original header was beaten away by Bono, but the Dane was on hand to prod home the rebound to set up a grandstand last half-hour. Sevilla’s task of seeing the game should’ve been a lot easier, but a moment of Lamela madness saw the Argentine collect a second yellow of the afternoon, though his dismissal didn’t de-rail Sevilla collecting their first LaLiga victory of the season.

Flashscore Man of the Match: José Ángel Carmona (Sevilla)