Six clear chances to none: a point salvaged against Villarreal

Pushed back long before the red card

2-2 at home. The scoreline reads like a tight game; the ninety minutes did not. Villarreal put up 2.02 xG with the two penalties taken out. Atlético managed 0.78. By FotMob's count Villarreal created six big chances, two of them the penalties, and missed all four that came in open play. Atlético created none.

None of that is down to the last quarter with ten men. Of Villarreal's 2.02 non-penalty xG, more than three quarters arrived before the sending-off on 76. Mikautadze had a chance worth 0.56 on 36 minutes, Ayoze Pérez one worth 0.41 on 45, and it was Oblak who kept out Ayoze's effort. Atlético were being pushed back while they still had eleven on the pitch.

We went in front, and it is tempting to wonder what a game without a red card might have looked like. Even so, this feels like a point salvaged rather than earned.

Almost all of it came from outside the box

Atlético had 19 shots, four more than the 15 against Málaga. The expected goals went the other way, from 0.92 down to 0.78. Thirteen of the 19 came from outside the area and only four found the target. Against Málaga it was eight inside and seven outside, so the ratio has flipped. The best chance Atlético had all night was worth 0.10, Giuliano Simeone's effort on 53 minutes. Next came 0.08, then the 0.06 Pubill buried, and the remaining sixteen sit below that.

Atlético had 52 per cent of the ball and still lost the touches-in-the-box count 34-37. Time on the ball was not turning into arrivals in dangerous areas. Villarreal cleared their lines more than twenty times and never let the middle open up.

Kang-in Lee took six of those shots, more than anyone in the side. Plenty missed the target, but the decision to shoot was rarely the wrong one. There was no obvious pass that would have created something better, and more than one of his efforts earned a corner. When he did get the ball inside the box he was happy to lay it off to Giuliano Simeone, so this was not a man swinging at everything.

The problem is the centre-forward position. Lookman played 79 minutes and had one shot, worth 0.02. Simeone apologised to him after the game. "I want to apologise to Lookman. I know it isn't his position. He had to help us out, because Sørloth is injured and Julián is still working his way back." Later the same evening he said that winning titles requires forwards.

With Sørloth and Álvarez both fully fit, the numbers up front would be there. With Sørloth injured and Álvarez only part of the way back, they are not.

Both goals conceded came from the spot

Mikautadze got into the area and was shaping to shoot when Le Normand pushed him over from behind. After a VAR check, Alejandro Hernández Hernández gave the penalty and a straight red on 76 minutes. The first reaction was surprise, though reading the law afterwards settled it.

A foul in the box can be downgraded to a caution, but only where the defender was making an attempt to play the ball. A push, with no approach to the ball, does not qualify, and that is what it looked like. There is no argument with the decision itself. What lingers is that similar contact does not usually end with a man sent off.

The first penalty came from Hjulmand's tangle with Buchanan, and Gerard Moreno converted it on 66. ItC called the award questionable, and opinion in Spain is divided on it too. Hjulmand had been distributing well from deep all evening. On this one occasion he lost the ball, then chased it into his own box, and the press backfired.

Oblak was outstanding again: Ayoze's 0.41 just before the break, Buchanan's 0.43 on 89 with Atlético down to ten. Penalties are the exception. Neither was saved, and he tends to commit early when the run-up is disguised. The worry is a side that has prepared for it going after him in a knockout tie.

Pubill's strike and Baena's through ball

The opener did not come from any sustained move.

On 59 minutes Pubill let fly with his left from outside the box and found the top left corner. A wonderful goal. ItC gave Pubill an 8, the best mark in the team. Seven minutes later he was off, replaced by Álvarez.

The equaliser on 85 came from one Baena pass in behind the back line. Giuliano took it on the right and slid it into the bottom left. Baena scored the free kick against Málaga on the opening weekend, so that is two games running with a goal involvement. "The World Cup let me get back the confidence in myself that I'd lost last year," he said before the season. He is the one to watch this year.

Álvarez needs to speak for himself

The whistles started the moment Álvarez appeared on the big screen while he was still on the bench. From his introduction on 66 they came every time he touched the ball. His only shot was blocked, and ItC gave him a 5.

When the players gathered in the centre circle to applaud the stands at full time, he was not among them. He walked to the dressing room alone. Simeone explained it in his press conference: the club, he said, had decided Álvarez should not go near the stand and the supporters, and had chosen to keep him away and send him straight down the tunnel. Asked how the player was coping, he said, "I'm not here to give advice. I have to focus on my own job, which is to give the best I have on the pitch," before cutting the subject off with, "I'm not going to answer every question about Julián."

He looked bleaker than expected, and it was a worrying watch. This was not a player who had stopped trying. But wanting it does not make the goals arrive any faster. Scoring regularly might shift the mood in the stands over time, and that time would be considerable. Whether he can keep playing through the whistles for that long is another matter.

If he intends to spend this season here, the order of things puts his own words first. An apology, and a statement that he is committed, from his own mouth. Both sides would be better for it.

Sevilla next, without Le Normand

Atlético sit third on four points, one win and one draw. Sevilla lead on six and Alavés are second on the same four. Villarreal have drawn both of theirs and sit ninth on two. The fixture list is staggered this season, though, so the games played do not match up: Barcelona, Real Madrid and Real Betis have each played once and have three points in hand. The table is provisional. Two matches unbeaten is still two matches unbeaten.

Next is Saturday 29 August, away at Sevilla. Le Normand will be suspended unless an appeal succeeds. Hancko will anchor the centre-back pairing, with Giménez, Pubill and Romero the candidates alongside him. The window also closes this week. Simeone said he would make whatever he is given work, and did not push for a signing himself.

Of the four goals scored in these two matches, exactly one came from inside the box in open play: Giuliano's on 85. Whether a second one arrives at Sevilla is the question.

Ratings

Starters

Substitutes

ItC ratings via Into the Calderón; FotMob ratings via FotMob.