Barcelona moved seven points clear at the top of La Liga after Dani Olmo and Robert Lewandowski struck late against Espanyol.<\/b><\/p>\n
Hansi Flick’s side were frustrated until four minutes from time when Fermin Lopez set up his fellow substitutes to score the crucial goals.<\/p>\n
First he played in Olmo to curl a superb strike into the top corner, before more good work by Lopez on the right teed up Lewandowski for a delightful close-range finish in the 90th minute.<\/p>\n
Barcelona have scored 12 goals in the last 15 minutes of the second half, more than any other team in La Liga this season.<\/p>\n
In a lively Catalan derby, the hosts made a fast start with former Blackburn Rovers forward Tyrhys Dolan having a shot blocked after four minutes.<\/p>\n
And it was visiting keeper Joan Garcia who returned to haunt his former club, with the 24-year-old – who left Espanyol last summer after nine years – making a string of vital saves.<\/p>\n
His replacement Marko Dmitrovic made a crucial stop in the 72nd minute to deny Eric Garcia from close range and a draw looked likely until Barca’s late pressure paid off.<\/p>\n
Second-placed Real Madrid could reduce the gap at the top to four points if they beat Real Betis at home on Sunday (15:15 GMT).<\/p>\n
Espanyol, whose last win over their neighbours in the league was back in 2009, remain in fifth place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barcelona moved seven points clear at the top of La Liga after Dani Olmo and Robert Lewandowski struck…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-672116","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115833719270349449","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}