Suarez, Rakitic help Barca win derby, stay on top
Barcelona came through a testing local derby at Espanyol to win 3-0 and cling on to their slender lead at the top of La Liga thanks to two clinical finishes from Luis Suarez and a strike from Ivan Rakitic made by a vintage run by Lionel Messi.
Suarez pounced on a disastrous backpass from Jose Manuel Jurado to break the deadlock in the 50th minute and Rakitic sealed the win in the 76th by sidefooting home Messi’s cutback after the Argentine had torn through the home defence.
Suarez, who had failed to score in his previous five games in all competitions, took advantage of another calamitous error by the otherwise impressive Espanyol backline and rifled in from close range in the 87th minute.
Barca top the standings on 81 points due to their superior headto-head over Real, who also have 81 and have a game in hand.
‘I WASN’T OBSESSED WITH GOAL DROUGHT’
Suarez insists he was not “obsessed” with ending his goal drought after scoring a brace
Suarez says the victory was all that mattered.
“Of course I am happy with the two goals I scored, for what they mean, but I want to make it clear that I wasn’t obsessed about no scoring recently,” he said.
“These are things that happen in football. The important thing is to help the team, it doesn’t matter who scores the goals.”
The 30-year-old was delighted with what he described as a “priceless” victory.
“It was not an easy game at all Espanyol came out well in the first half and were well organised in defence,” said Suarez.
“We couldn’t find a solution But thanks to our intensity desire and our ambition, we didn’t give up and the goal even tually arrived and calmed us down.
“The win today was priceless of course. We have to win every thing, the three games we have left, there’s nothing else.”