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| Barça players celebrate vs Las Palmas |
FC Barcelona put up one of their most dominant performances of the season on Saturday evening as they saw off Las Palmas with a comfortable 5-0 win at the Camp Nou in their 18th Liga game of the season, closing the gap on Real Madrid temporarily to two points.
Striker Luis Suárez regained his goalscoring touch and netted two beautiful goals while Lionel Messi, Arda Turan and Aleix Vidal got the other three goals to give Barça a comprehensive win despite sime starters not in the team and a not of missed chances in the first half.
Barça dominated the game from the first minute and got their opener on the 14th. Preferred over Ivan Rakitic, André Gomed beat Las Palmas’ offside trap to find space on the right wing before squaring the ball to Suárez who unleashed a fine finish past goalkeeper Javi Varas.
Barça kept on creating chances and this time it was Rafinha who got a big chance to score after Messi set him up with a fine pass, but the Brazilian fired wide when he should have passed to Suárez in the middle for a tap in.
Minutes later, a fine run from Arda set up Suárez on the left who lobbed the ball towards André Gomes in space to score, but the Portuguese star couldn’t as he had his shot saved. The star missed another big chance again after receiving a fine pass from Busquets but he blasted his shot over the bar.
Varas then denied Messi twice, once from a free-kick and another from a one-on-one situation. But he wouldn’t be denied the third time after a poor parry by the keeper on Rafinha’s cross was tapped in by Messi 7 minutes into the second half for 2-0.
It was 3-0 five minutes later after Rafinha set up Suárez in the box who tweaked his posture quite well before curling past Varas. Suárez failed to get his hat-trick after being set up for a one-on-one by Messi as his shot was saved by Varas, but Arda Turan was on hand to fire in the rebound.
It became an exhibition, Suárez was subbed off for Paco Alcácer who assisted Aleix Vidal for Barça’s 5th goal of the game with ten minutes left to play.
The win means Barça are only two points behind leaders Real Madrid who come up against Sevilla on Sunday night.