Barcelona made light of the suspended Lionel Messi’s absence to remain just two points behind La Liga leaders Real Madrid as Neymar netted his 100th goal for the club in a 4-1 win at Granada.
Earlier, Real Madrid consolidated their advantage at the top thanks to goals from Karim Benzema, Isco and Nacho to beat Deportivo Alaves 3-0 at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Madrid still also have a game in hand and the two are due meet at the Bernabeu in three weeks’ time.
Photo: AP
“The games after an international break are always special because the players travel a lot and accumulate tiredness,” Barca coach Luis Enrique said.
“Playing away from home makes it even more difficult, but we overcame those problems very well,” he said.
Luis Suarez made the breakthrough for Barca when he sent a lovely dinked effort over the helpless Guillermo Ochoa from Jordi Alba’s through-ball.
Granada sent on Chelsea loanee Jeremie Boga at the start of the second half and he took just five minutes to level as his pace proved too much for Barca’s cumbersome defense before finishing low into the corner.
However, Barca retook the lead 13 minutes later when Suarez turned provider for Paco Alcacer to net just his fourth goal since joining from Valencia in August last year.
Any chance of a Granada revival was ended when Uche Agbo was shown a second yellow card eight minutes from fulltime and seconds later Barca make the game safe when Ivan Rakitic drilled into the corner from the edge of the penalty area.
Neymar rounded off the victory with his 100th goal on his 177th appearance when he tapped home Alcacer’s cross at the far post.
At the Santiago Bernabeu, the European champions were grateful for Alaves’ wastefulness in front of goal as they moved a step closer to a first title in five years.
“Playing every three days you can’t always play perfectly for 90 minutes,” Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane said.
“We were having problems, we weren’t playing well and then all of a sudden Cristiano [Ronaldo] gets the ball, passes it to Isco, and he controls and scores,” he said. “That is what this team has. We know that at any moment we can hurt the opponents.”
Real suffered an injury blow inside 10 minutes when Raphael Varane experienced a recurrence of a hamstring injury and had to be replaced by Dani Carvajal.
“Rafa has damaged the same area as before, it isn’t as bad as three weeks ago and we hope it is nothing major,” Zidane said.
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