Real Sociedad recorded their third successive Primera Division win after seeing off Racing Santander 1-0 tonight.

Summer signing Joseba Llorente netted the only goal of the game in the seventh minute as promoted Sociedad followed up their victories over Deportivo La Coruna and Malaga with another three-point haul. The triumph moved Sociedad onto 16 points and provisionally into the top six in the standings ahead of tomorrow's matches, while Racing stay on ten points.

Llorente, who joined Sociedad from Villarreal during pre-season, had scored in both the victories over Depor and Malaga and it was he who made the vital breakthrough tonight. Xabi Prieto did superbly to create space for himself in midfield before dinking a brilliant pass through for Llorente, who took the ball in his stride before slotting past Antonio Tono from the edge of the area.

With Sociedad having won three of their four league matches at home prior to this game and Racing having picked up just one point from a possible 12 on their travels, the Cantabrian visitors knew they had a mountain to climb to get anything out of the game after that bad start. And an equaliser proved beyond them, with Sociedad looking the more likely side to add to the scoreline in the remainder of the game.

Antoine Griezmann lobbed a half-chance over in the 20th minute for the home side before David Zurutuza fired a well-struck effort into the side-netting soon after the half-hour. In between those chances Racing created their best opportunity of the first half with Francis Perez passing the ball inside to Ariel Nahuelpan, whose shot was saved by the legs of Sociedad goalkeeper Claudio Bravo.

The second half saw Sociedad create more chances, with Llorente finding himself clean through just after the restart. However, he did not have the pace to take advantage as Kennedy Bakircioglu got back to rob the striker. Tono then produced two crucial stops to deny Griezmann and Prieto as Sociedad pushed hard for their second goal.

Martin Lasarte's side were unable to get that second breakthrough but it did not matter as they kept Racing relatively quiet at the other end, although the visitors had a couple of chances late on through Rosenberg and Domingo Cisma that they failed to make the most of.