Sevilla travelled to Catalonia on Saturday to play bottom club Espanyol, hoping to secure a victory in order to keep in touch with league leaders Barcelona. Sevilla are in the hunt for a Champions League place but this has been threatened by some fairly dreadful performances. Indeed, both teams were on a bad run, with Espanyol without a win since November and Sevilla on a three game losing streak.

With both sides lacking in confidence it was no surprise that the game began frantically. Early chances came and went for Espanyol and for a while Sevilla were hanging on. The Malian Kanoute, playing the lone striker’s role for Sevilla, barely saw the ball in the first 20 minutes but gamely chased down defenders, offering moments of relief to his own team. Espanyol’s main threat came from Luis Garcia and Ivan Alonso. The pair were a constant nuisance but lacked a cutting edge, something that would be harshly demonstrated later on in the match.

Sevilla survived the first half and began to assert themselves in the second. However, it wasn’t until Espanyol’s Lola Smiljanic received a red card for a second bookable offence that the tide really turned. After Smiljanic’s dismissal, Kanoute began to see more of the ball. The imposing Malian stretched the Espanyol defence and provided room for Renato and Jesus Navas to work the wings. The Brazilian Renato struck the post with fifteen minutes to go and Ndri Romaric hit the crossbar moments later.

Despite Sevilla’s dominance it looked as if the game was heading for a draw. But with seven minutes to go, Kanoute demonstrated the killer touch that had been absent for the previous 83 minutes of the football match. Navas found some room to smack in a low cross which found Kanoute, and the Malian made no mistake with his side-foot finish to make it 1-0 to Sevilla. Then, in injury time, Navas skipped past his marker and again found Kanoute who produced an assured finish for a 2-0 victory.