Espanyol were looking for their first win at Camp Nou since 2009, but they’d hardly touched the ball in the opening 10 minutes as Barca set the pace in the Catalan derby.
The visitors’ cause certainly wasn’t helped when Ferran Torres got on the end of Lamine Yamal’s corner at the back post to head home his first LaLiga goal since January 31.
The hosts were so comfortable in possession, which was as high as 85% at one stage, that an odd lapse of concentration was always going to occur.
Thankfully for Barca, that didn’t lead to the equaliser and, in fact, after 25 minutes, Lamine’s delicious outside-of-the-foot pass found Torres centrally, and the striker’s deft touch saw the ball roll into the net past an on-rushing Marko Dmitrovic.
The Serbian then pulled off a fantastic double save from Eric Garcia and Fermin Lopez, to keep the score respectable before Alejandro Jose Hernandez blew the whistle for half-time.
The official was a little too whistle-happy at the start of the second half, with the game’s ebb and flow diluted as a result. Espanyol continued to offer nothing as an attacking force, with Cyril Ngonge being easily bullied off the ball, symptomatic of their afternoon.
Barca looked to have gone three up before Ferran’s hat-trick goal was ruled out for Garcia’s offside.
But within a minute, Pol Lozano was left all alone outside the box, and the Espanyol man fired home a right-footed missile that gave Joan Garcia no chance.
That gave the visitors some much-needed impetus, before Marcus Rashford somehow managed to pass up the easiest of chances to extend Barca’s lead.
Espanyol then had the hosts on the back foot for long periods, before Lamine beat Dmitrovic to a through ball and finished in an empty net.
With Espanyol simply wanting to leave as soon as possible by this point, there was still time for Rashford to put some gloss on the scoreline, and the result means that Espanyol are now without a win in 14 LaLiga games (D5, L9), while Barca have extended their head-to-head record over their local rivals to 30 games (W23, D7).
Flashscore Man of the Match: Ferran Torres (Barcelona)
