Real Madrid 1-0 Villarreal: Diomande opens Bernabeu account as Vinicius sees red

Real Madrid held on for a 1-0 victory against Villarreal after Vinicius Junior was shown a straight red card for Jose Mourinho's side.

Yan Diomande scored his first goal for Los Blancos, and his strike was enough to secure all three points at the Estadio Bernabeu as Madrid got back in the win column in LaLiga.

After Pape Gueye dragged wide early on, Kylian Mbappe struck the woodwork in the seventh minute as he could not divert his left-footed attempt from Alvaro Carreras' cross on target.

Mbappe went close again before the break, shooting straight at Peter Gulacsi after a brilliant lofted pass from Trent Alexander-Arnold, while Arda Guler failed to test the Villarreal goalkeeper from a tight angle.

Madrid finally broke the deadlock in the 62nd minute as Diomande took in a pass from Federico Valverde and arrowed a strike into the bottom-left corner, though the hosts were dealt a blow 10 minutes later.

Vinicius thought he had doubled Madrid's lead after converting from Jude Bellingham's cut-back, but the goal was ruled out and the Brazilian was instead shown a red card as he had pulled Nathan Saliba's hair in the build-up to the goal.

Thibaut Courtois was alert to deny Carlos Romero and Georges Mikautadze late on as Madrid managed to absorb the pressure and hold on for the victory.

Diomande shines amid Vinicius drama

Mourinho opted to start Diomande ahead of Vinicius, and the teenager repaid his manager's faith by opening his Madrid account, while he could keep his starting role after Vinicius' moment of madness coming off the bench.

Along with his match-winner, Diomande also had the joint-most touches in the box of any Madrid player (seven), created the joint-most chances (three), won the joint-most duels (six) and attempted the second-most dribbles (five).

It was hardly the entertainment Madrid fans have been used to seeing in recent home matches; after scoring four in each of their last four home LaLiga matches, Madrid netted just once after accumulating 0.95 expected goals (xG) from their 11 shots.

Villarreal's main threat came from Gueye, who recorded a match-high four shots, but they failed to capitalise on their numerical advantage as their two-game winning run came to an end.