Real Madrid breezed past feeble Espanyol to make it three convincing home wins out of three under Zinedine Zidane.
The damage was done in the first half, when the hosts were utterly dominant and quickly wrapped up the points with goals from Karim Benzema, James Rodriguez and two from Cristiano Ronaldo, who completed his hat-trick in the latter stages before Oscar Duarte’s own goal made it six.
Espanyol were missing no fewer than four forwards, so it was perhaps no surprise to see the visitors playing like strangers, and an early sign of the onslaught to follow came when Marcelo fired over the bar before a minute had elapsed. Ronaldo then had a shot saved and Isco flashed a low effort just wide, and the opening goal was only a matter of time.
It arrived when James found space to cross from the right and his whipped delivery found Benzema, whose glancing header cannoned off his shoulder before drifting into the corner.
Three minutes later it was two, as Ronaldo was sent sprawling inside the area by a poor challenge from Enzo Roco and picked himself up to send a firm low penalty past debutant keeper Giedrius Arlauskis. And the Lithuanian was picking the ball out of the net once again when Dani Carvajal raced forward and, when he was challenged, the loose ball fell to James whose powerful strike took a big deflection off Papakouli Diop and flew into the net.
The visitors had a good chance just before the break when Mamadou Sylla broke down the right and crossed for Salva Sevilla, whose powderpuff shot summed up his team’s first half efforts. And worse immediately followed for Espanyol as Ronaldo broke forward, beat one challenge with a back heel flick and another with a stepover before thrashing home an unstoppable left-footed drive.
Madrid relaxed in the second half but gradually reignited and Benzema headed straight at Arlauskis before Ronaldo’s free-kick grazed the roof of the net.
Ronaldo completed his hat-trick with a close-range header from Jese Rodriguez’s brilliant cross, and the scoring was completed when another Jese delivery was turned into his own net by Oscar Duarte.
Meanwhile, Gary Neville’s winless league run as Valencia coach stretched to eight games as his side were beaten 1-0 by relegation-threatened Sporting Gijon.
The hosts were the dominant side for most of the game but failed to take a string of chances and fell behind to Antonio Sanabria’s penalty on 50 minutes. They continued to throw everything at their opponents but Alvaro Negredo missed two chances to equalise.
Elsewhere, Kevin Gameiro scored one and made another as Sevilla beat Levante 3-1 to move into fifth while Las Palmas moved out of the bottom three as Willian Jose’s last-minute goal earned a priceless 2-1 victory over 10- man Celta Vigo.
