The hosts were no strangers to fast starts this season, and they scored in the opening 10 minutes for the third game running when a careless backpass from Sergi Cardona was pounced upon by Julian Alvarez, who rolled the ball back for Pablo Barrios to steer past goalkeeper Luiz Junior.
It should have been 2-0 in the 14th minute when Giuliano Simeone was perfectly placed to finish off a free-flowing move, only to scuff his shot wide.
A minute later, the Atlético defence opened up for Alberto Moleiro to sail through, but he also sent a glorious chance past the post. Neat work from Moleiro midway through the half, then he created another good shooting chance for himself, but again he failed to make Jan Oblak work.
Despite not creating any more real chances, Diego Simeone’s men controlled the tempo for the rest of the half – that was until added time, when Nicolas Pépé took aim with a free-kick which struck the crossbar.
With no prior second-half goals for Los Colchoneros before tonight, and their only previous half-time lead of the campaign turning into a loss, there was still much room for anxiety amongst the Metropolitano faithful.
But that hoodoo ended within seven minutes of the restart, when Marcos Llorente went on a long run down the right and produced an excellent cross for Deadline Day arrival and debutant Nicolas González to bury with his head and make it 2-0.
The home side were firmly in control by now, and with 20 minutes to play, they thought they had gone further clear when Clement Lenglet’s header from a corner flew past Luiz Junior, but the goal was quickly disallowed for pushing inside the area.
It was a drab end to the contest for Villarreal, who came into this round of matches as the highest scorers in LaLiga, but barely threatened in the second half. They are now winless in six H2H matches, as Atleti cruised to a first clean sheet of the campaign.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Marcos Llorente (Atletico Madrid)
