Espanyol beat Alaves 2-0 at home in the second game of the 28th round in a continuation of the Spanish championship. Espanyol has also been helped by the fact that Alaves was left without the first goalkeeper Pacheco, who was sent off after a foul in the 19th minute. Bernardo Espinosa scored the first goal for the home team in the referee’s compensation, and Wu Lei the second right at the start of the second half in the 47th minute.
Like Leganes, who welcomes Real Valladolid tonight, Espanyol is still last with 23 points. Celta Vigo and Villarreal continue to play tonight, as do Mallorca, which welcomes Barcelona. The timetable for the matches between Real Madrid and Eibar is tomorrow.
With two points more than second-placed Real, Barcelona leads the list, and Seville, who celebrated 2-0 against Real Betis on Thursday, is third with 50 points.
Rooted to the bottom of LaLiga Santander, Espanyol realized that they would have to restart proceedings with a win to stand any reasonable chance of avoiding relegation, and that is exactly what they did.
They were given a boost when Alave’s goalkeeper Fernando Pacheco was sent off after just 19 minutes.
From that point on, it was all Espanyol, and the opener eventually came through a strong header from Bernardo Espinosa deep into first-half stoppage time. Then, Wu Lei doubled the advantage of the hosts in less than two minutes into the second half.
Raul de Tomas, who after his strike replaced Wu Lei moments, set up Sergi Darder for what looked like a certain goal late on but the midfielder dragged his shot wide.
Nevertheless, Espanyol kept in front of their fixture against Villarreal for only their second home win of the season that takes them within three points of 17th place Celta Vigo.
