Real Betis 1 - 0 Valencia - Salva opens Betis account

Real Betis moved up to fourth in the Primera Division after Salva Sevilla's first goal of the season helped them see off Valencia 1-0.

Los Verdiblancos dominated the early stages and went ahead after just nine minutes as Juan Carlos' cross was not properly cleared by Adil Rami and Sevilla slammed home from the edge of the area despite the best efforts of Diego Alves.

Valencia were much improved after the break with Roberto Soldado in particular having his chances but Adrian made a fine save with his legs to repel the Spanish international's best effort three minutes from time to claim his third consecutive clean sheet since taking over as number one.

Mauricio Pellegrino made just the two changes from the side that started Tuesday's 3-0 win over BATE Borisov and Betis took advantage of the visitors' lethargy from that trip in the early stages.

Sevilla had already seen an effort fly off target before putting his side ahead, despite Alves getting a strong hand to his effort.

Joel Campbell nearly added a second just before half-time as he headed narrowly wide from Paulao's knockdown but Valencia were reinvigorated after the break and had a number of chances to claim an equaliser.

Soldado pulled his first effort wide when one-on-one with Adrian after a fine throughball from Jonathan Viera before the goalkeeper did brilliantly to turn behind Tino Costa's free-kick and another shot by Soldado from the edge of the area.

Valencia's top-scorer went close again with a header that flashed just over a few minutes later before he played Viera in on goal with 20 minutes remaining but the youngster lacked the composure needed to finish as he blasted over.

Ruben Castro then fired over with a decent chance to seal the points for Betis from Nono's free-kick and that miss could have proved costly as with time running out Soldado was again played through on goal by Nelson Valdez but his low drive was excellently turned away by Adrian to round off a frustrating night for Los Che.