ATLETICO TOO GOOD

Madrid 

Atletico Madrid moved to within six points of La Liga leaders Barcelona thanks to a comfortable 2-0 win over David Moyes’s Real Sociedad yesterday.

The champions never looked in danger from the moment Mikel Gonzalez headed into his own net after just two minutes.

Antoine Griezmann then doubled the hosts’ advantage against his former club shortly afterwards to end the game as a contest inside the first 10 minutes.

Barcelona can regain their nine-point lead over Atletico when they and closest challengers Real Madrid are in action against Almeria and Rayo Vallecano respectively today.

Sociedad beat Atletico 2-1 when the sides met back in November and came into the game having lost just one of their last eight La Liga games, but were on the back foot straight away as Arda Turan volleyed against the post inside 60 seconds.

The visitors managed to scramble the rebound behind but from the resulting corner, Gonzalez could only flick Koke’s in-swinging delivery into the far corner.

Eight minutes later it was 2-0 as Geronimo Rulli could only parry Koke’s fierce drive into the path of Griezmann, who slammed the ball high into the net but refused to celebrate out of respect to the club he spent nine years with prior to his big money move to Atletico last summer.

Griezmann came close to inflicting more pain on his former employers as he was denied by a last-ditch tackle from Gonzalez before nodding just wide from another dangerous corner.

Sociedad gradually grew into the game, but only seriously threatened Jan Oblak’s goal when Chory Castro’s powerful shot forced the Slovenian into a smart save.

Atletico took the sting out of the game in the second-half with next week’s Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid in mind.

However, they were still characteristically solid at the back to secure a fifth consecutive clean sheet and move four points clear of Valencia in the fight to make it back to the Champions League next season.