Diego Simeone believes Alexander Sorloth is enjoying his best run of form in an Atletico Madrid shirt and expects his strike partner, Julian Alvarez, to get back to his best soon.

Sorloth's downward header proved decisive as Atleti defeated Alaves 1-0 in LaLiga on Sunday, with the Norwegian guiding Pablo Barrios' looping cross in off the post.

No other player from LaLiga has bettered Sorloth's five headed goals in all competitions this season (level with Vedat Muriqi), and the Norwegian has hit the net three times with his head in his last four matches – as many times as he did in his previous 51 outings for Atleti.

Speaking to DAZN after the win, which took Atleti level with fourth-placed Villarreal on 41 points, Simeone sang the praises of his towering striker.

"We were talking to him, showing him images in an individual video we made for him," Simeone said of Sorloth.

"He's going through his best moment since he's been at Atleti, in terms of consistency, because he gives us a lot of things with his diagonal runs, holding the ball up, scoring important goals, having chances in almost every game. 

"We need that player. The cross was not one of the best, but Alex improved it, and it was a good header to make it a great goal."

By contrast, Alvarez saw his goal drought extend to six games in all competitions, with the Argentina international only scoring once in his last 10 matches.

But Simeone is confident Alvarez – who had four shots with a lowly expected goals (xG) value of 0.12 on Sunday – will turn things around soon.

"As happens with all important players, there are stages when they are not at their best, like he is experiencing at the moment, in terms of goals. 

"Against Deportivo, he was good; against [Real] Madrid, he was also very good. Today he played a very good game, and the goal will come. 

"He had one shot that was going in the corner and was blocked by a defender. It's very important, we need him, and he'll come back. When we don't realise it, he'll be back scoring goals."