Sevilla and Valencia maintained their pursuit of title favourites Barcelona and Real Madrid with wins on Sunday.

Third-placed Sevilla secured a hard-fought 3-2 win against Villarreal.

The home side went ahead through Luis Fabiano after nine minutes only for Robert Pires to level with a crisp volley shortly before the half hour mark.

David Fuster handed the Yellow Submarine a surprise lead after 59 minutes but the prolific Fabiano equalised almost immediately before substitute Fredi Kanoute grabbed the winner within three minutes of his introduction.

The win moved Sevilla back to within three points of Real Madrid while they are four adrift of leaders Barcelona. Both sides won on Saturday.

Valencia are a point behind Sevilla after a routine 3-1 defeat of Real Zaragoza.

Captain David Villa, against his former club, scored one and made one for Pablo Hernandez after Juan Mata had given Los Che and early lead.

Angel Lafita grabbed Zaragoza's sole reply.

Espanyol's seven-match unbeaten league run came to an end as they went down 1-0 to in-form Sporting Gijon at El Molinon.

Mate Bilic struck the only goal of the game after three minutes to extend Sporting's unbeaten league run to five matches and move them to within a point of the top six.

Sporting are level on points with Athletic Bilbao, who won 2-0 at Racing Santander.

Carlos Gurpegui gave the visitors the lead after half an hour and Andoni Iraola added a second from the penalty spot 15 minutes from time to seal a second consecutive win for the Basques.

Real Valladolid and struggling Xerez drew 0-0 while an early own goal from Josetxo and a late Kalu Uche strike helped lowly Almeria record only their third victory of the season at the expense of Osasuna, 2-0 being the final score.

On Saturday, 10-man Real Madrid continued their remarkable run of success against city rivals Atletico at the Vicente Calderon, but they were given a huge scare after almost surrendering a 3-0 lead in an incident-packed derby they won 3-2.

Real have not lost a league game at this ground since the 1998/99 season, and they looked set to cruise to another victory as goals from Kaka, Marcelo and Gonzalo Higuain put them in total control midway through the second half.

However, the 65th-minute dismissal of Sergio Ramos gave Atletico a lifeline and the struggling hosts pulled goals back through Diego Forlan and Sergio Aguero before mounting a sustained - if ultimately unsuccessful - bid for a late equaliser.

Real's win kept them within a point of leaders Barcelona, who beat Real Mallorca 4-2 earlier in the evening.

Pedro bagged a brace and Thierry Henry scored his first goal of the season for Barca.

Barcelona were ahead within 12 minutes as Pedro latched onto Zlatan Ibrahimovic's sublime back-heeled pass and slotted the ball underneath Dudu Aouate.

The Catalans' lead disappeared when Gerard Pique could only flick Marti's corner into the path of the unmarked Nunes, who headed home from close range to silence the Nou Camp.

Barca struggled to find their rhythm after the goal and Mallorca were a match for their more illustrious rivals in the next 20 minutes.

But Barca struck a double blow before half-time to effectively end the islanders' hopes of taking anything from this match.

Aouate saved three times in quick succession from Pedro, Henry and Busquets but could do nothing to prevent the former from crashing home at the fourth time of asking five minutes before the break.

Henry added the third when the Frenchman intervened with an opportunist header to divert Busquets' effort past Aouate following Pedro's free-kick.

The scoring was completed late on, with Lionel Messi making it 4-1 from the penalty spot after Josemi brought down Ibrahimovic.

Substitute Alhassane Keita grabbed a second for Mallorca at the death, but it turned out to be a routine win for Barcelona.