Clearly in no mood to waste time, Villarreal took the lead on six minutes as Alfonso Pedraza’s cross wasn’t dealt with by two Mallorca defenders, with the ball dropping invitingly for Gerard Moreno to poke home.
The visitors responded just two minutes later, however, as Gerard’s slack pass was seized on by Jan Virgili, with the ball worked to Pablo Torre and then Samu Costa, who found Luiz Júnior’s bottom left-hand corner from an angle, firing through Villarreal right-back Pau Navarro’s legs.
Villarreal struggled to create chances in their attempts to get back in front, but a subdued crowd at La Cerámica was momentarily woken up by Nicolas Pepe’s drive off target around the half-hour mark. Meanwhile, Mallorca continued to threaten every so often, as Junior did well to parry away Torre’s effort from Virgili’s cross.
After Moleiro was harshly penalised for a hand in the face of Pablo Maffeo, referee Jose Luis Guzman Mansilla booked Villarreal head coach Marcelino, symptomatic of a frustrating half for the hosts, with Moleiro again left exasperated shortly before the break as he headed straight into Lucas Bergstrom’s arms.
Just before the break, Mallorca went close themselves through the busy Antonio Sanchez, but the Balearic Islanders struggled to impose themselves after the interval, with Moleiro once more failing to beat Bergstrom.
Marcelino was the first of the two bosses to turn to his bench, making a triple substitution shortly after the hour, with one of those introductions, Georges Mikautadze, thwarted excellently by Bergström, who had been booked for time-wasting.
With time marching on, Villarreal fans will have been disheartened after a penalty of theirs was rightly overturned by VAR. But their mood was transformed late on, when Tajon Buchanan’s cross was ultimately turned in by fellow substitute Tani Oluwaseyi, after Mallorca captain Antonio Raillo had inadvertently diverted the ball into the Canadian’s path.
Pepe could have been awarded a penalty to make the game safe, but his appeals fell on deaf ears as Villarreal saw out the remainder of the game.
Despite the second-half arrival of leading marksman Vedat Muriqi, Mallorca fell to their fifth league away defeat in six this season and are now languishing in 16th as a consequence, with the next LaLiga round seeing them engage with a potential relegation six-pointer at home to 17th-placed Osasuna.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Gerard Moreno (Villarreal)
