Manzano works magic as Sevilla ease past Atletico

New Sevilla coach Gregorio Manzano enjoyed a winning league debut as his side cruised to a 3-1 home win over rivals Atletico Madrid on Sunday.

Goals from Alvaro Negredo, Diego Perotti and Frederic Kanoute clinched the spoils for Sevilla, who move above Atletico into fifth place.

Manzano, who took over from the sacked Antonio Alvarez, has won both of his first two matches in charge, with a 1-0 Europa League win at Borussia Dortmund on Thursday followed up by triumph against Atletico.

Atletico had hoped to enact revenge for their 2-0 loss to Sevilla in last season’s King’s Cup final, but it was not to be.

Negredo opened the scoring in the 28th minute with a beautiful curling shot into the top corner.

Seven minutes later Argentine Perotti was fortunate to see his long-range shot take a cruel deflection that left goalkeeper David de Gea wrong-footed.

Everything went Sevilla’s way and veteran Kanoute, 33, made it 3-0 six minutes after the break to wrap up the points, before Diego Costa replied for the visitors.

Elsewhere, Brazilian international striker Nilmar scored his fifth goal of the season as Villarreal defeated Racing Santander 2-0 to move to within one point of leaders Valencia.

It was a fifth consecutive league win for Villarreal as their in-form striking duo of Nilmar and Giuseppe Rossi did the business again.

Club record signing Nilmar, who cost 11 million euros from Internacional, scored the opener after just eight minutes and Italian international Rossi bagged his fourth goal of the season on 13 minutes.

Villarreal, league runners-up in 2008, lie a point behind pace-setters Valencia, who continued their unbeaten start on Saturday with a 2-1 home win over Athletic Bilbao to make it 16 points from a possible 18.

Champions Barcelona, currently in third, will move to a point behind Valencia if they beat Real Mallorca at home later on Sunday.

Barcelona must do without playmaker Xavi, who misses the Mallorca game and Spain’s upcoming Euro 2012 qualifiers as he recovers from tendinitis.

“He (Xavi) has had problems since the (Spain) game against Mexico and he can’t go on anymore,” explained Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola.

“His qualities can be replaced but no footballer can do what he does.”

For Mallorca coach Michael Laudrup it will be an emotional return to Camp Nou, where he played with distinction for Barca from 1989 to 1994, winning four league titles alongside Guardiola.

Unbeaten Real Madrid are a point behind Barca in fourth and host winless Deportivo La Coruna later on Sunday.

Real coach Jose Mourinho showed the media his line-up for the game in advance and insisted that none of the ‘Galacticos’ were untouchable if they failed to put in the hard work.

“I don’t do untouchable players. They earn it with their work-rate,” said Mourinho. “Take Cristiano (Ronaldo) for example. He works like nobody’s business and represents the fundamentals of footballers that I want.”

Real drew 0-0 with Levante last time out and have scored just six goals in their first five league matches.