MADRID: Villarreal thrashed struggling Elche 4-0 in La Liga on Sunday to keep their unbeaten start intact and stay within two points of leaders Real Madrid. Gerard Moreno and Giovani Lo Celso scored in the first half before Francis Coquelin and Jose Luis Morales struck in the closing minutes.

Unai Emery's side are the only team yet to concede a goal in the Spanish top flight and sit level on 10 points with Barcelona. Athletic Bilbao's unbeaten run ended with a 1-0 home loss to Espanyol as Martin Braithwaite scored on his debut days after his contract with Barcelona was terminated. Valencia hammered Getafe 5-1 with Gennaro Gattuso's team bouncing back from consecutive one-goal losses. Osasuna won for the third time in four games courtesy of Ruben Garcia's late goal in a 2-1 victory over Rayo Vallecano.

Meanwhile, Robert Lewandowski scored again as Barcelona defeated Sevilla 3-0 in La Liga on Saturday, while Real Madrid made it four wins from four with victory over Real Betis. Barcelona rode their lucky early on at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan as Marc-Andre ter Stegen denied Ivan Rakitic and Youssef En-Nesyri before the visitors struck against the run of play.

Raphinha headed in the rebound after Lewandowski's dinked effort was cleared off the line, but the Poland star didn't need long to get on the scoresheet himself. Lewandowski controlled a flighted pass from Jules Kounde on his chest and volleyed past Bono for his fifth league goal in four appearances. Eric Garcia tapped in Barcelona's third five minutes after half-time after Raphinha's cross was nodded across goal by Kounde, who was sold by Sevilla for 50 million euros ($49.8 million) this summer. - AFP