Live Commentary: Barcelona 5-1 Villarreal - as it happened

Barcelona have moved within two matches of an historic unbeaten La Liga campaign by thrashing Villarreal 5-1 at the Camp Nou.

Goals from Philippe Coutinho, Paulinho and Lionel Messi gave the Spanish champions a three-goal advantage by the interval.

Although the Yellows pulled one back through Nicola Sansone early in the second period, a late brace from Ousmane Dembele added gloss to the scoreline.

Find out how the all the action unfolded with Sports Mole's text commentary below.

8.56pmA five-star performance from Barcelona sees them hammer Villarreal at the Camp Nou and move within two games of a historic unbeaten domestic season. That's all we have time for tonight but stick with Sports Mole for our ongoing coverage of this evening's biggest matches. Many thanks for joining us.

90+3 minFULL TIME: Barcelona 5-1 Villarreal

90 minThere will be three minutes of stoppage time to play.

90 minOusmane Dembele adds further gloss to the final scoreline with a beautiful chipped finish from close range. He plays a neat one-two with Mina before dinking the ball over the goalkeeper to make it 5-1 to the hosts.

90 minGOAL! Barcelona 5-1 Villarreal (Ousmane Dembele)

88 minDembele adds a fourth for Barca to add some gloss to the scoreline but it's substitute Ivan Rakitic who should take all of the credit. Rakitic ran the Villarreal defence ragged and laid the ball on platter for his teammate to stroke over the line.

87 minGOAL! Barcelona 4-1 Villarreal (Ousmane Dembele)

85 minThere's a half-chance for Barca as Messi shoots first time from 20 yards, but Ruiz is there to take the sting out of the Argentine's effort.

84 minRodri goes for goal and Sansone once again gets in the way, except this time he deflects the ball not into the back of the net, but out for a goalkick.

82 minBOOKING! Gaspar goes into the book for a hefty challenge on Dinge. He can have no complaints about being penalised for that clumsy lunge!

80 minSUBSTITUTION: Barcelona's final change sees Yerry Mina take the place of Pique as the hosts look to see this game out.

78 minSuarez causes the Villarreal defence a few problems as he twists and turns in the penalty area and prepares to pull the trigger. Everyone in a yellow shirt looks relieved when the offside flag goes up.

76 minSHOT! Sansone goes in search of his second of the evening, and this one would have been more intentional. The Italian lets fly from 25 yards with an absolute screamer, putting it just inches over the bar!

74 minGOAL DISALLOWED! Coutinho thinks he has scored his second of the night after firing Dembele's cutback over the line, but an offside flag cuts short his celebrations. It was the right call by the linesman, too.

72 minBOOKING! Fuego goes flying into Messi with an overzealous challenge and is shown a yellow card for his efforts.

70 minSUBSTITUTION: And being caught in the offside trap is Bacca's final contribution of the match. He is taken off and replaced with Enes Unal for the final 20 minutes.

68 minThe Colombian striker applies pressure on Barca again, this time while chasing down Castillejo's through-ball, but he times his run all wrong and is caught offside.

66 minBacca swivels on the edge of the Barcelona box and gets a shot away. Unfortunatelty for him and Villarreal, it's straight at Cillessen, who makes a comfortable save.

64 minSUBSTITUTION: Barca throw on another of their big guns as Ivan Rakitic enters the fray. Busquets is the one to make way.

62 minHere are the scenes as Iniesta headed for the dugout...

ðŸ“ Camp Nou
Iniestaaaa, Iniestaaaa
ðŸ”µðŸ”´ pic.twitter.com/dmv7zty9VB

— FC Barcelona ðŸ†ðŸ† (@FCBarcelona) May 9, 2018

60 minSUBSTITUTION: On comes Suarez and Iniesta is the man to replace him. The noise from the home and away fans is absolutely incredible as they acknowledge this legend of the Spanish game.

Written by

Mark Langshaw

Live Commentary: Barcelona 5-1 Villarreal - as it happened

People mentioned in this article :

Teams mentioned in this article :

Barcelona

Villarreal