Atletico Madrid coach Diego Simeone was delighted with victory at Rayo Vallecano last night.

Atetico were 2-0 ahead via Nahuel Molina and Mario Hermoso inside the opening 25 minutes. Florian Lejeune saw red for Rayo before Fran Garcia's late consolation.

After the 2-1 win, Simeone said: "The team is certainly better, it shows. We have all managed to compete in the same way. The people who come on from the bench contribute a lot.

"This creates many possibilities for us. The defensive structure is back in place, to be able to generate the talent that we have through our defensive structure. Today I think we played a good game until the seventy and a half minute mark. From there, it can happen that the team didn't finish solving a match that was almost over, and Rayo had a chance to draw the match.

"Molina's first goal comes from a play that we dragged along with (Antoine) Griezmann. And finally Molina managed to score because he played excellent matches. We took a victory that could have been difficult for us in the end."