Late goals see Real Madrid to easy win at home to Alaves

Madrid, Feb 20 Real Madrid scored three goals in the last 27 minutes to claim a 3-0 win at home to struggling Alaves to assure they will remain at least four points clear at the top of La Liga even if second-place Sevilla win away to Espanyol on Sunday evening.

Marco Asensio opened the scoring on Saturday night with an excellent curling shot in the 63rd minute when it looked as if Madrid could be heading for another frustrating night in front of goal and had even been booed off with the score 0-0 at halftime.

Vinicius Jr's first goal in seven matches doubled their lead with 10 minutes left to play and Karim Benzema scored an injury-time to round off the scoring.

Atletico Madrid recovered from a recent run of poor results as goals from Joao Felix, Luis Suarez and Angel Correa saw them home away to Osasuna, who had three times more shots than Diego Simeone's men but lacked effectiveness in front of goal, Xinhua reports. The return of Manuel Llorente to midfield gave more drive to Atletico, who saw how Joao Feliz put them ahead as the home side appealed for a foul on goalkeeper Manuel Herrera from Suarez.

Suarez's goal was an excellent finish, finishing a break by catching Herrera off his line from around 50 metres out.

Arnaut Danjuma's hat-trick helped Villarreal continue their excellent recent form as they warmed up for next week's Champions League clash against Juventus with a 4-1 win away to Granada.

Danjuma put Villarreal 2-0 up by the break and then slotted home from the penalty spot after Luis Milla had given Granada hope with a spot-kick of his own. Moi Gomez added a fourth in injury time to add to Granada's troubles.

Alvaro Negredo scored in the second minute of first-half injury time to save a point for Cadiz at home to Getafe, who opened the scoring with Borja Mayoral's sixth-minute penalty.

Getafe will be happier with the point, while Cadiz are condemned to at least another week deep in the relegation zone.

On Friday, Elche took another step away from the bottom three after goals from Guido Carrillo and Ezequiel Ponce saw them first back from a goal down at home to Rayo Vallecano.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor