Barcelona brush aside Sevilla to reignite La Liga hopes
SEVILLE: Barcelona reignited their title hopes after Lionel Messi and Ousmane Dembele scored in a 2-0 victory over Sevilla on Saturday to put them two points behind Atletico Madrid.
Atletico still have two games in hand, the first of those came against sixth-placed Villarreal late yesterday.
Barca looked dead and buried a few weeks ago but this was their ninth win out of 10 in La Liga, a surge that has put them back in contention, with Atletico playing against Real Madrid next weekend.
“We’ve taken some big hits and we have got up again,” said Barca’s Gerard Pique.
“Of course the title race is on, there is confidence and a lot of hope in this team.”
Sevilla started the day as arguably the form team at the top, having won all of their last six league games, the last five of those without conceding a goal.
But they were second best at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan, a dominant performance from Barcelona exposing them still as slightly short of Spain’s top three.
It also creates an intriguing back-drop to Wednesday’s Copa del Rey semi-final second leg when these two teams meet again, with Barca hoping to overturn a 2-0 deficit at Camp Nou.
Although Pedri and Ronald Araujo could be doubts after both were substituted in the second half with injury problems.
“We believe we can come back but Wednesday is a different game,” said coach Ronald Koeman. “We have to play a perfect match, only then do we have a chance.”
GLASGOW: Celtic caretaker manager John Kennedy got off to a winning start as Odsonne Edouard’s early goal was enough to see off toothless Aberdeen 1-0 on Saturday.
The Hoops assistant manager was promoted on Wednesday morning following the resignation of Neil Lennon with the Glasgow giants 18 points adrift of rivals Rangers at the top of the Scottish Premiership.
Victory cuts Steven Gerrard’s men’s lead to 15, but with just seven points needed from their remaining eight games of the campaign, it is a question of when not if Rangers end Celtic’s run of nine consecutive league titles.
The coronation for the runaway leaders could even come at Celtic Park in three weeks time and there was little in Celtic’s performance to suggest they look capable of ending Rangers quest to go the full league season unbeaten.
In a similar contest to the one Celtic won by the same scoreline in Lennon’s final home game in charge 10 days ago, an early goal was all the hosts needed against a Dons side that have now not scored in seven of their last eight games.
Rangers are not in action until Wednesday as their opponents Livingston played St Johnstone in the League Cup final late yesterday.