Barcelona thrashed Las Palmas 5-0 at the Nou Camp on Saturday.

Luis Suarez opened the scoring as the champions produced a dominant performance that could have seen them out of sight by half-time, were it not for rare display of poor finishing.

Lionel Messi eventually found the back of the net after the restart before Suarez notched his second, with Arda Turan and Aleix Vidal also scoring to wrap up a comfortable victory for the Catalan club.

Victory took them above Sevilla and to within two points of Real, but the capital club have two games in hand on their bitter rivals. The first of those, on Sunday, is away to Sevilla.

“What I'm happiest is how we played without the ball," Barca coach Luis Enrique said. “If you don't press Las Palmas well, they create problems. But getting the ball back from them quickly we were able to generate chances and it's a miracle the game was still alive at half time. The team's work defensively was great, it was one of the best performances since I've been here."