“Now I just want to leave this behind and focus on the next game”. I think the game is more merit of Barcelona than demerit of Real Madrid.
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Lucas Perez scored his eighth goal of the season and third in as many games, before Jonny Castro doubled the lead with a spectacular own-goal late on, after Nolito had earlier missed a penalty.
“We apologise to the supporters, that wasn’t the game we wanted to play. We fed off of them, we learned so much from them”.
“We tried to go on the attack but it wasn’t possible”. The midfielder’s performance was good enough that Real Madrid fans gave him a standing ovation as he came off the pitch in the 77th minute.
“Losing like this and against a rival like Barcelona hurts us a lot. We both have the same objectives and it tastes all the better having been so superior”, said Enrique. The only thing we can do now is continue to work hard and see how we can improve for the next match. “It’s a long tournament and we have to try to recover these six points”.
The Chile worldwide almost embarrassed himself towards the end of the first half as he failed to claim a Madrid corner, but he and Barca got away unscathed – a nd just a moment later the Catalans got their second goal. There was a minute of silence in honor of the victims in Paris, and a large French flag was displayed across a few of the lower fan sections as the players lined up at midfield before kickoff.
They surged six points clear at the top with 30 from 12 matches and ratcheted up the pressure on under-fire Real coach Rafa Benitez who had the luxury of fielding the trio of Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema but to little effect.
Third-place Atletico Madrid, which plays at Real Betis on Sunday, is one point behind Real Madrid and seven behind Barcelona.
Verane attempted only two tackles in the game, winning none of them and struggled to contain the threat of Luis Suarez for most of the game.
Lionel Messi returned as a second-half substitute after nine games out, and had a hand in Suarez’s second and Barca’s fourth.
Iniesta (9.34) and Claudio Bravo (8.67) deserve ample praise for their excellent performances at the Bernabeu, but it was Neymar who stole the plaudits in Madrid in yet another fine showing from the Brazilian.
MF Andres Iniesta, 10 – The playmaker was instrumental once again and, together with Busquets, took control of the game from the initial whistle.
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Sergi Roberto made a powerful towards the heart of the Madrid defence before playing in Suarez, who clinically curled his shot past Keylor Navas with the outside of his right boot. Replays showed that Neymar appeared to be slightly offside when he received Iniesta’s pass.
