With a 1-1 draw at Almeria, Atletico Madrid was unable to gain any ground on the top three teams in La Liga. Despite Angel Correa's goal in the 18th minute, Diego Simeone's team has frequently struggled in this region of Andalusia, and that was once again evident on Sunday.
If not for Geoffrey Kondogbia's touch on Marcos Llorente's goal-bound shot, which was ruled out for offside, Atleti would have been two goals up.
Soon after, El Bilal Toure scored, and Almeria held on for a draw that put fourth-placed Atleti, which had Sergio Reguilon dismissed late in the game, 13 points behind leaders Barcelona.
After Antoine Griezmann mishandled Kondogbia's pass, Correa collected it and snuck the ball between Fernando Martinez's legs to give Atleti the lead. After 14 minutes, Llorente's shot appeared to be going in without any help, but Kondogbia tipped it in from an offside position.
In the 37th minute, Toure met a right-sided cross from Lucas Robertone with a diving header that beat Jan Oblak, making Kondogbia's error costly. Correa and Alvaro Morata both had shots that Martinez parried, and the latter also had a wonderful opportunity to score but headed wide.
With just one victory in its previous six league games, Atleti substitute Reguilon was sent off in the dying moments after earning two yellow cards in the space of four minutes.
MAJOR LESSONS
With a final expected goals (xG) return of 1.17 compared to Almeria's 0.42, Atleti had another painful day in a match they did more than enough to win.
Only two teams in the league have more home victories this season than Almeria, which has only lost one of its last seven LaLiga road games to the Colchoneros.
Even if the draw has pushed Atleti back into the top four, they are still in a tough fight to make the Champions League as they are seven points behind Real Sociedad in third place.
A MAJOR OBJECTIVE FOR CORREA
Correa made use of his opportunity superbly, scoring on one of his game-high four shots, which was twice as many as any other visitor.
The international from Argentina scored his 50th LaLiga goal for Atleti, becoming only the second player under Simeone to do so after Griezmann (102 goals).
ERRATIC MORATA
The striker Morata should have extended his perfect record to three games after scoring in each of his previous two league games against Almeria.
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