There are afternoons when a game is settled before the crowd has finished finding its seats, and this was one of them. Deportivo tore into Valencia at the Riazor with a ferocity that the visitors never managed to answer, and by the time the sun had climbed over the old stadium the contest was effectively over. Three goals, two of them gifted by Valencia's own defenders, told a story of one team surging and another sinking.

The final scoreline of 3-1 flatters Valencia more than it should. This was a demolition dressed up as a match, a home side moving with belief and menace while the visitors chased shadows and conceded to their own boots. For a club with genuine designs on the upper reaches of La Liga, it was exactly the kind of statement Deportivo needed against opposition already scrambling near the foot of the table.

By full time the only remaining drama was a late flash of indiscipline, but the substance had been decided long before. Deportivo climb to seventh, Valencia stew in seventeenth, and the gulf between the two on this evidence looked far wider than a handful of league places.

A brutal opening

The first blow arrived on 13 minutes, and it came in the cruellest fashion for Valencia. César Tárrega, under pressure and scrambling to clear, could only turn the ball into his own net, and the Riazor erupted. It was a soft, self-inflicted wound, the sort that drains confidence from a struggling side in an instant, and Valencia never truly recovered their footing.

Four minutes later the game was as good as gone. Mario Soriano threaded a through ball into the space behind a Valencia defence caught flat on a fast break, and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang did the rest. His left-footed finish from the centre of the box was clean, cold and precise, steered into the middle of the goal with the ease of a man who has done it a thousand times. Two goals in four minutes, and Deportivo were rampant.

Aubameyang's goal carried the fingerprints of a well-drilled home side: quick in transition, ruthless in the final third, and hungry to punish. Soriano's vision to release him on the counter was the pass of the afternoon, and it exposed a Valencia rearguard that looked stretched and short of answers. The early spell was breathless, and Deportivo threatened to run away with it entirely.

A flicker of hope

To their credit, Valencia did not simply crumble. On 26 minutes Umar Sadiq gave them a lifeline, pouncing from very close range to steer a right-footed finish into the bottom right corner. For a moment there was a pulse, a suggestion that the visitors might yet claw their way back into a game that had run away from them.

That hope, though, was fragile. Sadiq's goal narrowed the arithmetic but did nothing to dent Deportivo's authority, and the home side continued to look the more likely to score again. Valencia needed a platform to build on and never found one, their brief spell of encouragement fading before it could become anything more substantial.

The half ended with Deportivo comfortable and Valencia clinging to the notion that one moment of quality might change everything. It was a false comfort. The second half would strip away even that faint optimism and confirm the grim reality of Valencia's start to the campaign.

The dagger

The decisive blow came on 59 minutes, and once again Valencia contrived to author their own downfall. Mouctar Diakhaby turned the ball into his own net, the second own goal of a wretched afternoon for the visitors, and the last threads of resistance snapped. Three goals conceded, two of them scored by their own defenders — a statistic that will haunt the Valencia dressing room.

From there the match settled into a procession. Deportivo, three goals to the good and utterly in control, saw out the contest with the composure of a side enjoying its work. Valencia's heads dropped, their movement grew ragged, and the Riazor could relax into celebration long before the whistle.

The only sour note for the hosts came deep into stoppage time, when Adrià Alti collected a second yellow card in the 93rd minute and departed. It was a needless flourish of ill-discipline on an otherwise flawless day, but it barely registered against the scale of the victory already secured.

Table and trajectory

For Deportivo, this was a result to build something on. The win lifts them to seventh on five points from an unbeaten start of one victory and two draws, and the manner of it — five goals scored, only three conceded across the campaign — hints at a side finding rhythm and confidence early. Aubameyang's sharpness and Soriano's creativity offer a template, and the Riazor now has reason to believe this season could deliver more than mid-table anonymity.

For Valencia, the alarm bells are ringing loud. Seventeenth on a single point, with no wins from three, one goal scored and four conceded, they are already staring at the bottom of the table and searching for answers. Two own goals in an afternoon speaks of fragility and a lack of assurance that will need addressing quickly, before a slow start hardens into a genuine crisis.

The margin between the sides felt emphatic, yet the season is long and Valencia have the personnel — Sadiq among them — to climb clear of trouble. But climb they must, and soon. Deportivo, meanwhile, march on with a spring in their step, a place in the top seven, and the satisfaction of a job done ruthlessly well.