Volos lost two players to red cards and Atromitos took the points

Atromitos beat Volos at the Peristeri Stadium once Volos were reduced to nine men, and the chances favoured the home side by a wide margin.

Volos spent the last forty minutes a man short, and for the final ten of them they were two short. Dženis Burnić was sent off in the 50th minute, and Gustavo Furtado followed on 80, after a VAR review upgraded his booking to a red card. Atromitos scored three times against a side with that many players missing, and the sending offs shaped everything that came after.

Serginho opened the scoring in the 27th minute, set up by Juan José Perea. Perea scored again on 67, and Panagiotis Tsantilas added a third in the 90th minute, a goal the VAR review confirmed. Perea finished with the highest rating on either side, 8.5, and he was the one who turned the most chances into something useful, with three shots, two of them on target.

Atromitos had 55% of the ball. That is a little above their usual home share of 52.4%, so it was hardly out of the ordinary. Volos had 45%, which is more than their away average of 40.4%, but possession means little when one side is a player down, and it tells us less about the afternoon than the chances do.

Expected goals, usually shortened to xG, is a way of valuing each shot by how likely it was to go in, so a big chance counts for more than a speculative effort from distance. Atromitos finished with 1.46 xG from 11 shots, which is far above the 0.55 they usually manage at home. Seven of those shots came from inside the box, and that is where the gap opened. Volos took five shots in all, well below the league average of 12 per side, and their xG of 0.52 is close to their away norm of 0.54. Their attack was ordinary for them; the difference was in who was on the end of the better opportunities.

Atromitos kept a clean sheet, and Volos conceded chances worth less than they usually do away from home, with 2.14 xG against being their normal figure. Three goals still went in, though, and Volos left the ground without scoring for the second time in recent matches. The defensive picture is simple: the chances were fewer, but the finishing was clinical enough to make the difference.

The table has Atromitos 13th, with two points from seven games. Volos are 14th, still without a point from eight. The result leaves one side with the first real sense that the season can move, and the other with the familiar task of finding a way back after a day that started one man short and ended two down.

Player of the matchJ. Perea1 goal · 1 assist8.5

Serginho1 goal7.9

S. Moutoussamy1 assist7.6

S. Pnevmonidis1 assist7.5