MADRID, Feb. 24 (Xinhua) -- FC Barcelona came back from conceding an early goal to cruise to victory at home over Girona and piled the pressure on second placed Atletico Madrid who play away to Sevilla on Saturday night.
Barca's 6-1 win put them 10 points ahead of Atletico and retained their 14-point advantage on Real Madrid, who won 4-0 at home to Alaves earlier in the day.
Portu opened the scoring for Girona in the 3rd minute only for Luis Suarez to equalize almost directly from the kick off.
A Barca side containing Phillipe Coutinho and Ousmane Dembele in their starting 11, then proceeded to take Girona apart with Leo Messi scoring twice and Suarez adding another before the break.
Countinho scored his first league goal since joining from Liverpool, before Suarez completed his hat-trick on a night when the only bad news was a muscle injury suffered by right back Nelson Semedo.
Real Madrid continued their positive run of form with a relatively comfortable 4-0 win at home to Alaves where the Bale, Benzema, Ronaldo connection worked to perfection.
Ronaldo scored twice, Bale got on the scoresheet and forced a penalty which Benzema, who had set up both his companions' goals finished to round off a satisfying afternoon against a rival who defended well, but fell apart after Ronaldo opened the scoring a minute before half time.
Second half goals from Iago Aspas and Maxi Gomez saw Celta Vigo to a 2-0 win over Eibar to move them into second place, while Leganes and Las Palmas drew 0-0 in a result which ends Leganes' run of four consecutive defeats.