Valencia thrashed Betis 6-3, closing in on Barcelona at the top of the table.

Valencia's impressive form continued as "The Bats" thrashed Real Betis away from home to climb to second place in the standings, closing in on leaders Barcelona.

Traveling to Real Betis's stadium has never been easy for any team, with Levante, Deportivo, and Celta Vigo all having lost when visiting Benito Villamarin. However, this hasn't deterred Valencia, who are enjoying their best start in several years.

Entering last night's match, for over half an hour, both Real Betis and Valencia played rather cautiously, not creating any truly promising opportunities. However, the turning point came in the 35th minute, when Geoffrey Kondogbia accurately positioned himself from a teammate's corner kick and headed the ball skillfully to break the deadlock for the visiting Valencia. In the final minute of the first half, Goncalo Guedes doubled Valencia's lead with a spectacular goal from outside the penalty area, sending the ball straight into the top corner.

Real Betis had a chance to reduce the deficit at the beginning of the second half, but Sergi Leon failed to convert a penalty in the 55th minute. This proved costly, as Valencia scored two consecutive goals through Rodrigo (64') and Santi Mina (74').

It was only when they were 4 goals down that the home team woke up and fought back strongly. Within just 5 minutes, Real Betis scored three goals to reduce the deficit to 3-4 with strikes from Joel Campbell (79'), Antonio Sanabria (80'), and Cristian Tello (84'). However, that was all the home team could do, as in the final two minutes, Valencia extinguished any hope of a point with two goals from Simone Zaza (88') and Andreas Pereira (90').

Valencia secured a resounding victory away at Real Betis.

With a resounding 6-3 victory, Valencia now has 18 points and has moved up to second place in the standings, 4 points behind league leaders Barca and 1 point ahead of defending champions Real Madrid, who are currently in third place.

In several matches played on Sunday evening, Malaga continued their disappointing run of form with a home defeat against newly promoted Leganes, remaining rooted at the bottom of the table without a win this season. Meanwhile, Bakumbu's brace in the first 11 minutes of the first half helped Villarreal beat hosts Girona, closing in on European qualification spots.

La Liga standings

According to Bongdaplus