Staff Reporter.
Thomas Lemar scored a dramatic injury-time winner as La Liga champions Atletico Madrid came from behind to beat newly promoted Espanyol.
The France midfielder scored in the 99th minute to give Atletico a third victory from their opening four games.
The hosts led from the 40th minute through a Raul de Tomas looping header.
Yannick Carrasco levelled for Atletico 11 minutes from time with a brilliant solo goal before Lemar’s late winner.
The 25-year-old latched onto Carrasco’s flick before unleashing a shot that the weak hand of Diego Lopez was unable to keep out.
It was an underwhelming Atletico return for striker Antoine Griezmann, who was replaced by Joao Felix in the 58th minute.
“It was a really tough game, especially in the first half,” Carrasco said.
“The boss made a number of changes which shows how deep our squad is and the substitutes made a difference.
“The added time was just, I thought. Espanyol wasted a lot of time, there were two VAR reviews and we were able to use that to our advantage and score.”
Atletico coach Diego Simeone also thought the added time was fair due to time wasting from their opponents.
“It was a lot of minutes but I’ve never seen a game with so much time wasted, you’d have to look at what happened during the game,” he said.
Espanyol are still searching for their first victory since returning to Spain’s top flight, while unbeaten Atletico went top with 10 points from a possible 12. However, they can be overtaken by city rivals Real Madrid who face Celta Vigo at 20:00 BST.