Valencia 2 - Albacete 0

Valencia: Palop; Curro Torres, Ayala, Marchena, Carboni (Di Vaio 58'); Baraja, Albelda (Sissoko 68'); Angulo, Aimar (Corradi 83'), Fabio Aurelio; Mista. 4-2-3-1.
Albacete: Valbuena; Santi (Mikel 88'), Buades, Agus, Mingo; Redondo, Viaud, Jaime (Peralta 75'), Peña; Pacheco, Francisco (Mark González 66'). 4-4-2.

Team changes: Valencia: Palop, Curro Torres, Baraja, Aimar for Cañizares, Sissoko, Caneira, Di Vaio / Albacete: Mingo, Redondo, Jaime, Francisco for Alvaro Rubio, David Sánchez, Peralta, Mikel.

Goals:
1-0. 69. Mista. Picked up pass from Aimar and fired shot through hands of keeper.
2-0. 75. Angulo. Ran in to head Mista cross down past Valbuena.

Valencia returned to the European places after a 2-0 win over struggling Albacete. Antonio López's side were almost back to full strength, missing only Vicente who is expected back within a few days or so. Curro Torres was back though after a long lay off due to injury and Aimar and Baraja also shrugged off knocks, and the coach opted to give Palop a run out in goal in place of Cañizares.

It was hard going at first for the locals though, and only an attentive defence kept out Pacheco early on. After that though most of the play was in the visitors' half, Angulo hitting the post, and Aimar going close with a couple of dangerous free kicks and then finding Baraja with a third for him to bring a good save out of Valbuena with a powerful header.

Albacete's defence held on though, and soon after the restart López brought on Di Vaio, now back in favour after a bust up with his manager last weekend. Soon afterwards the visitors were left with ten men when Buades was shown a second yellow card, and Valencia finally found the space to make a breakthrough.

Di Vaio and Mista combined for Mista to fire a shot through the arms of Valbuena to open the scoring, and soon afterwards Mista beat the offside to collect a long pass near to goal. The keeper was able to close him down, but the striker recovered quickly and floated the ball across for Angulo to head home a second. Di Vaio could have scored a third near the end, but Valbuena beat out his shot. It didn't matter by then though, and Valencia were back on track for a place in Europe. The result leaves the visitors in next to bottom spot some eleven points away from safety, and they could already be relegated if results go against them next week.