Valencia keeps rising in La Liga table as they have been in great form for the past month. Going from fifth place, to battling Sevilla to take fourth place, to now taking third place from Atletico Madrid. Valencia continues to be in great form and hopes to continue to stay in the run for at least a Champions League spot for next season.
Manager Nuno Santos and his team have been on a great run since early February and is now on a eight game undefeated streak and hope to continue this from now, but they do have a tough schedule coming up as they face Athletic Bilbao, Villarreal, Levante and Barcelona in the next four weeks. 20-year old Paco Alcacer has found his stride was able to get three behind the net on Friday night, but was disallowed two as they called him offsides. Defender Nicolas Otamendi, who has been on a couple teams radar, also found the net along with Andre Gomes.
Shkodran Mustafi was able to find the net in the 16th minute when a corner was touched on and he reacted quickly to flick the ball into the net, but was judged offsides when replays show that he was clearly on. In the 32nd minute, Valencia was again ruled offisdes in another questionable decision by the side referee. Paco Alcacer was able to score after breaking through the middle and keeping his run to kiss the ball into the bottom corner but the linesman ruled him off when again the replays show that he was on.
Finally in the 44th minute, Andre Gomes put Valencia on the scoreboard and gave his team the 1-0 lead. Sofiane Feghouli, who has been great in assisting his team in the past few games, got a deep cross from Pablo Piatti at the back post. Feghouli volleyed a strike which was beaten by goalkeeper Przemysław Tyton, but Gomes was there to fire the rebound from close range and finally get the home team in the scoreboard.
Two minutes into the second half, Paco was again disallowed a goal as he was called offsides once again, but the ref made the right decision this time as Paco was clearly offsides.
It was in the 57th minute when Paco was finally able to find the net and this time got his team the 2-0 lead. A cross form Gomes gave Paco the chance to tap in the ball and past Tyton.
In the 71st minute, Valencia was once again on the scoreboard but this time it came from an own goal by Elche’s own Enzo Roco. There seemed to be a chance for Valencia when Antonio Barragan gave a low cross , but Roco made a fool of himself when he tried to clear the ball and there was nothing Tyton could do as it went past him to make it 3-0.
We could clearly see that at this point Valencia had three points secured but in Nicolas Otamendi was able to score another in stoppage time as Piatti was denied a goal but the corner given to them finished in Otamendi finding the ball with his head and make it 4-0 to end the game after that.
It was a one sided game as Valencia controlled the majority of the game, Elche was nowhere to be seen on the field. Valencia was able to secure another three points and continue hold third place, one point ahead of Atletico Madrid. Paco Alcacer gets the man of the match for being able to show that he deserves a starting position and found the net three times, but still showed great form. Valencia faces Villarreal on April 5th as they take a break for international matches while Elche faces Espanyol on April 6th.