Elche vs Valencia 0-1

Valencia left Elche with a 1-0 win after Umar Sadiq struck in the 69th minute, with Arnaut Danjuma supplying the assist. That settled a tight game at Estadio Manuel Martínez Valero.

The first half brought no goals, though Elche were forced into a change on 24 minutes when Thomas Lemar was replaced by Facundo Buonanotte. Elche then picked up bookings for Germán Valera on 36 minutes and Víctor Chust on 42 minutes, before the interval arrived at 0-0.

Valencia made the decisive move six minutes after the restart when Sadiq, who had come on in the 61st minute, finished Danjuma’s pass. Elche responded with three changes on 68 minutes, including Valera’s replacement by Tete Morente, but they could not find an equaliser. Valencia then made two changes on 78 minutes and two more on 88 minutes as they saw out the closing stages, while Javi Guerra was booked on 73 minutes and Stole Dimitrievski in the 90th minute of stoppage time.

The numbers pointed towards an Elche-heavy contest without a home breakthrough. Elche had 69% of the possession, 617 passes to Valencia’s 280, 15 shots to 5 and 7 corners to 2. Valencia matched Elche for shots on target, with three each, and had the slightly higher xG at 0.96 to 0.87. Elche also committed 9 fouls to Valencia’s 15, while the away side were caught offside 6 times to Elche’s 2.

Elche collected three yellow cards, for Valera, Chust and Buonanotte. Valencia were booked twice, for Guerra and Dimitrievski, and there were no red cards.