FC Barcelona continued their fine start to the season as Ernesto Valverde's side piled the agony on bottom of the Spanish football league table Malaga in the Camp Nou Stadium.
Barcelona went into the game after just two day's rest following their Champions League win at home to Olympiakos and Valverde rested Gerard Pique to allow Javier Mascherano to come into the side on Saturday, reports Xinhua news agency.
Gerard Deulofeu opened the scoring with his first ever competitive goal for the club after just two minutes, with the Malaga players complaining the ball had gone out of play before Lucas Digne provided the final pass.
Malaga worked hard to keep the score down, but suffered an injury setback when striker Diego Rolan suffered a hamstring injury and Andres Iniesta's first league goal in over a year, 10 minutes after the break, doubled their lead.
Luis Suarez missed a great chance to add a third when he missed a virtually open goal, but without being brilliant, Barcelona did enough to make it 25 points from a possible 27 and leave Malaga rock bottom with just one from nine games.
Valencia remain in second place, just four points behind Barcelona as they made it five wins out of five games with a 4-0 thumping of Sevilla, who have now lost their last three matches.
--IANS
sam/mr
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