A red hot Luis Suarez scored four goals and contributed three assists as Barcelona’s stuttering La Liga title charge sparked back to life with a spectacular 8-0 thrashing of Deportivo La Coruna last night.
Atletico Madrid kept the pressure on Barca with a 1-0 win at Athletic Bilbao thanks to a first half header from Fernando Torres, although defender Diego Godin was forced off in the ninth minute with a suspected hamstring injury.
Barca lead Atletico due to their superior head-to-head record, with both teams on 79 points with four games remaining.
Three successive defeats had put the breaks on Barcelona’s title hopes but Uruguayan Suarez made sure the losing run would not continue when he gave Barca a two-goal cushion at the break by scoring in the 11th and 24th minutes.
He then provided the cross for Ivan Rakitic to grab the third in the 48th. Suarez completed his hat-trick five minutes later and netted his fourth in the 64th. Lionel Messi, Marc Bartra and Neymar rounded off the scoring late on.
Torres scored for the fifth consecutive game in all competitions to give Atletico a fourth straight league win, heading in Antoine Griezmann’s chipped cross on 38 minutes.
However, Atletico defender Godin could miss their next league game against Malaga and their Champions League semi-final first leg against Bayern Munich after hurting his hamstring, two weeks after recovering from a hamstring injury.