Barcelona on Saturday returned to the top of the La Liga table despite being held to a 1-1 draw by Espanyol in a fiery Barcelona derby, where both clubs ended the game with 10 men.
Marcos Alonso’s header gave La Blaugrana an early lead before Joselu levelled from the spot, while both Jordi Alba and Vinicius Souza saw red as tempers flared between the two rivals in the final exchanges.
Revelling in successfully overturning Robert Lewandowski’s three-game ban to have him available for the derby, Barcelona exploded out of the blocks at Camp Nou and needed just seven minutes to open the scoring.
After Alvaro Fernandez did well to thwart Gavi, Raphinha’s corner was headed down by Lewandowski to the back post, where Andreas Christensen kept the ball alive for Alonso to score from close range.
From then on, Xavi’s side were utterly dominant. Lewandowski had another header kept out by Fernandez, while Ansu Fati and Alonso fired wide of the goal within the first 20 minutes.
