Barcelona 3-1 Elche: England forward scores in second half as Hansi Flick’s side weather late storm
Barcelona bounced back from their clásico defeat with a 3-1 victory over Elche on Sunday to keep the gap from the La Liga summit at five points.
Real Madrid had opened up an eight-point lead at the top when they followed up their 2-1 win over Barcelona with a 4-0 rout of Valencia.
Lamine Yamal opened the scoring for Barcelona in the 9th minute when he finished from 12 yards, after Alejandro Balde had pounced on a poor pass and raided Elche’s right.
Ferran Torres doubled the lead two minutes later when Fermin Lopez capitalised on Adria Pedrosa’s slip, burst down the left wing and set him up for a tap in at the far post.
Rafa Mir pulled one back for the visitors just before the break, driving into the box on the inside left channel and curling a shot around Ronald Araujo to beat Wojciech Szczesny into the far net.
Barcelona thought they had extended their lead nine minutes before the hour mark when Lopez ran through and squared for Marcus Rashford to convert, but the Spaniard had been offside in the build up.
Elche came close to an equaliser when Mir bent another curler to the far post but it just grazed the top of the crossbar.
Lopez and Rashford combined again at the hour mark, that time successfully, with the England forward driving into the box on the left and crashing a shot in off the bar to extend the lead.
There was extensive pressure from Elche in the late stages but Barcelona weathered the storm.
