Sevilla and Alaves both won to keep the pressure on leaders Barcelona in La Liga Week 12, while there was finally some respite for Valencia.
The weekend opened with Real Sociedad putting on a second-half show to beat Levante 3-1 on Friday.
Levante led through Chema in just the fourth minute, but Theo Hernandez, Juanmi and Mikel Oyarzabal scored in a 10-minute spell towards the end to ease the pressure on Asier Garitano.
Valencia made it back-to-back wins for the first time in 2018-19 as they triumphed 1-0 at Getafe.
The VAR rescued Los Che as a late review allowed Dani Parejo to score a penalty against his former club.
Real Valladolid-Eibar and Girona-Leganes both ended in stalemate, but Alaves came back from a goal down to beat Huesca 2-1.
Moi Gomez’s opener for Huesca was soon cancelled out by Jony Rodriguez, before Ruben Sobrino fired the Basques into a Champions League berth.
Villarreal’s slump was extended to five games as they could only draw 2-2 with newly-promoted Rayo Vallecano.
Rayo were similarly out-of-sorts with no win since September 14, but Raul de Tomas and Alvaro Garcia combined to seemingly sent them on their way.
Nonetheless, Nicola Sansone added to Samuel Chukwueze’s opener with 10 minutes remaining for a share of the spoils, despite Alvaro Gonzalez’s red card in stoppage time.
Finally, Sevillawon their clash of the top-four pretenders with Espanyol on Sunday night.
Borja Iglesias’ fifth goal in four m looked to be enough for the Catalans, until Gabriel Mercado and super-sub Wissam Ben Yedder turned the match on its head, allowing the Andalusians to go second.