By DPA
Madrid : Champions League hopefuls Sevilla thrashed Racing Santander 4-1 at home in football’s Spanish Primera Liga.
The impressive win late Saturday took Sevilla up to eighth in Liga, and confirms their resurgence under new coach Manolo Jimenez, despite their ongoing injury crisis.
Frederic Kanoute gave Sevilla the lead in the 26th minute with his eighth goal, scoring from close range after being perfectly set up by Daniel Alves.
In the 50th minute, promising defender Ezequiel Garay levelled for Santander by heading in a corner. But Sevilla kept their heads up and went ahead again thanks to a classy free-kick from Ernesto Chevanton in the 66th minute.
Chevanton celebrated the goal in euphoric fashion. Three months ago previous coach Juande Ramos was desperate to get rid of him. Twenty minutes from time Garay earned himself a second yellow card, and without him, Santander were soon shipping water.
In the 85th minute, youngster Jesus Navas broke free down the right and made it 3-1 with a clever cross shot. Adriano completed the rout in injury time with a handsome solo goal.
Earlier in the day, Valencia earned themselves a temporary respite with a 2-2 draw in Zaragoza.
With just 15 minutes left, Valencia were 2-0 down and heading for their eighth defeat. They were then saved by late goals from Nikola Zigic and David Silva.
The eventful late draw leaves Ronald Koeman’s troubled team joint sixth, now level on 26 points with Santander.
Koeman launched his controversial “revolution” this week, throwing out veterans Santiago Canizares, David Albelda and Miguel Angel Angulo.
In addition, German keeper Timo Hildebrand was not part of the squad again, despite suffering from no injury.
Instead, Koeman put in goal a 34-year-old Spaniard, who has played just once since joining in 2005 – and immediately regretted it. In the 18th minute Mora clumsily pulled down Ricardo Oliveira for a clear penalty, which was transformed by Diego Milito.
In the 29th minute, the nervous Mora astonishingly pushed a harmless centre from Sergio Garcia into his own goal to make it 2-0.
The Valencia players must have been wishing Koeman had not been so rigid with Canizares and Hildebrand. The Dutch coach then lost his cool and was sent off.
Just before the interval, Oliveira had what looked like a perfectly good goal disallowed for a supposed foul.
In the 75th minute, supersub Zigic gave Valencia hope by heading in a centre from Javier Arizmendi. Six minutes later David Silva made it 2-2 with a fierce left-foot drive.
In injury time Arizmendi almost gave Valencia an improbable win, but his close-range shot hit the post.
In Saturday’s other early game, Getafe scored a handy 2-0 win down in Almeria, with goals from Lucas Licht and Ruben de la Red. The comfortable win takes Getafe up to 11th, two points and one place above Almeria.