Villarreal Coach Marcelino was left to lament the error made by centre-back Eric Bailly that led to the only goal of the game against Atletico Madrid.
The Ivory Coast defender lost possession in his own half to substitute Fernando Torres, who went on to round the goalkeeper and two defenders before sliding the ball into an empty net.
“If you make a mistake as big as that against a team like Atletico Madrid then you end up paying for it,” Marcelino told reporters.
“We’ll have to look at what happened and try to avoid it in the future but we deserved more because up until that point we had dominated the game. I can’t remember any real Atletico chances.
“We controlled things and played a great game against a great team who were solid and competitive.
“We threw away all our good efforts with a mistake that shouldn’t have happened and I think we deserved a draw.”
Villarreal have now gone 10 games without a win – eight in La Liga and two in the Europa League – although Marcelino believes they have not had any luck of late.
“I’m proud of what this team does on the pitch and we’ll be much closer to winning if we play as we did against Atleti.
“I’ve never had such a bad run as this, when we’ve had little success in front of goal, but we haven’t had much good fortune,” he argued.