Berliner Tageblatt - Villarreal crush Rayo to move second in La Liga

Champions Barca host Elche on Sunday. La Liga leaders Real Madrid welcome Valencia to the Santiago Bernabeu later Saturday.

Marcelino Garcia Toral's Villarreal moved within four points of Madrid with their emphatic home win over Rayo, 10th.

Villarreal's key man was playmaker Alberto Moleiro, who joined from Las Palmas in the summer. He scored a fine individual goal and set up another at the Estadio de la Ceramica.

"I'm very happy, I'm finding my form more and more, and my team-mates make things easy for me, adapting at the start was a little tricky," Moleiro told DAZN.

"We knew that (we could go second), we have to keep focussing on our next game."

Veteran striker Gerard Moreno opened the scoring after 22 minutes, netting for the second consecutive game.

The 33-year-old forward escaped Pep Chavarria in the box with some clever footwork and fired into the far corner.

Moleiro added a superb second after the break, driving forward from his own half, and as Rayo stood off him, he slotted home from outside the area.

The midfielder teed up Santi Comesana for the third two minutes later.

Ayoze Perez grabbed his first goal of the season for Villarreal's fourth, as he begins to find form after injury.

"We were not good in our defending, marking, it's a game where we can keep learning," said Rayo goalkeeper Augusto Batalla.

"We can't go crazy because of a bad afternoon, that's what today was and we have to continue."

M.Ouellet--BTB