La Liga Analysis · Villarreal
Can Villarreal Guard What Moleiro and Akhomach Create?
Villarreal beat Levante after moving Moleiro behind a central forward and keeping Akhomach wide. The pairing gives Iñigo Pérez options, provided the team protects the moments after losing the ball.
A minute that tested the arrangement
Ayoze Pérez had barely put Villarreal ahead when Iván Romero turned Toljan's cross into an acrobatic equalizer. One minute separated a worked opening from a warning about what could happen at the other end. The eventual 3-1 win over Levante gives Iñigo Pérez a useful attacking arrangement before the league break: Ilias Akhomach occupies the right, and Alberto Moleiro finds room behind a central forward. The harder question is whether Villarreal can protect that arrangement when a promising move ends without a shot.
The club says Pérez kept ten of the eleven starters from the 3-1 win at Málaga. AS describes a more meaningful continuity: he has moved away from a two-striker setup, with Moleiro operating behind one reference point. Akhomach can hold a defender's eye outside; Moleiro can arrive inside rather than waiting beside another forward for service. This is a clearer division of labor than asking every gifted attacker to make the same run toward goal.
Ayoze opened the scoring after combining with Moleiro. Akhomach had already created an early chance for him and kept troubling Levante's left side. Villarreal's first home league win of the season did not spring from a single flash. The players returned to relationships that had worked in Málaga and produced different routes toward the box. For a squad planner, that matters: an existing pair has acquired distinct jobs without another search for a costly attacking answer.
The space left behind
AS traces the equalizer through Dela's carry and Toljan's cross before Romero's finish. The finish was excellent. It also followed a spell in which Villarreal had done much of what Pérez wanted with the ball. The club recalled similarly quick home setbacks against Deportivo and Betis; that makes the moment worth examining without pretending the three goals conceded came from an identical flaw.
That distinction matters. An attack can create repeated danger and still leave the next possession open to an opponent who drives through the first challenge. The new arrangement may improve where Villarreal place their attackers, but it has to include who delays a carry after the pass fails or a forward move breaks down. Two wins do not make that question pedantic. They make it possible to ask it without treating every goal conceded as a verdict on the coach.
There is a fairer reading of Levante's response: the cross and Romero's finish might beat a well-positioned defense on another day too. Villarreal should not rewrite an encouraging attacking plan because of one impressive volley. The test is whether similar transitions keep reaching the wide crossing lane before the rest of the side has recovered. The answer will come from repeated sequences, not from attaching blame to one spectacular strike.
Why the roles are worth keeping
In the 53rd minute, Akhomach received near the edge of the area and used a backheel to release Moleiro. The movement was quick enough that Moleiro could finish before Levante reset. Pérez had kept the first-half relationships intact. This is the return on defined roles: each player knew where his teammate might appear after the first defender committed.
Moleiro supplied two assists and scored once according to AS. His contribution is easier to value through the shape than through the tidy sum of goal involvements. From behind a central forward he can help an attack begin, then enter the scoring area when Akhomach has already shifted the defense. Akhomach, in turn, does not have to vacate the right to prove he is involved. Width can be an active job, not a waiting room for a pass.
The contrast with the first-half equalizer keeps the argument honest. Villarreal had a route into the box and an answer after a setback, yet the opponent could still reach a dangerous crossing position. Those are two parts of the same match, not competing stories from which a columnist must select one. A stable eleven and clearer attacking roles have bought Pérez something valuable: a chance to work on protection without dismantling what now creates chances.
The next assignment belongs to Pérez
Ayoze, Moleiro and Georges Mikautadze supplied the goals against Levante. The club can celebrate successive wins and its first home victory of the season. The break also gives Pérez a less glamorous assignment: specify where the nearest midfielder and full-back stand when Akhomach and Moleiro combine and the move stops short of a shot.
A conservative answer would pull too much support away from the two players whose connection has made the side harder to read. An ambitious answer would let every nearby player join the move and hope the next turnover resembles none of the previous ones. The useful middle is a repeatable assignment: one player supports the next pass while another protects the space through which the opponent would counter. It needs to be visible to the players, not merely diagrammed later.
When Villarreal return, the revealing moment may follow their first promising move that fails. Akhomach should still stretch the right and Moleiro should still arrive inside. The nearest cover player then has to delay the opponent's first carry before a cross becomes available. If that protection appears without blunting the pair, Pérez can call this a sustainable adjustment rather than two attractive wins separated by a problem he already knew.
Keep the signal alive
What comes next
Follow the team or writer, then come back for the next consequential game and argument.
New results and original stories will roll into My Sports.
