Winning has become a great habit for Barcelona this term, so it was little surprise to see them start on the offensive, and Lamine Yamal will feel he scored the pick of the bunch of their raft of goals so far when some fancy footwork worked himself a yard before he arrowed an inch-perfect effort into the top right corner.
Barcelona didn’t have it all their way, though, and were pegged back by Betis’ first shot of the game. A recycled corner made its way to Pablo Fornals, who planted an inch-perfect cross onto the head of Valentin Gomez to power home a leveller at the far post.
A stunning Joan Garcia save prevented Hector Bellerin from firing Betis into the lead when he arrived late at the far post, and it proved to be a huge save in the scheme of the game as just a minute later Rodri climbed highest at the other end to head home Fermin Lopez’s corner and re-establish their lead.
It looked as though Giovani Lo Celso had levelled the scores in sensational style when he volleyed a loose bouncing ball into the top corner, but VAR chalked off what would’ve been one of the goals of the season when they ruled Cucho Hernandez had handled the ball in the build-up.
Fermin came within a whisker of netting Barca’s third within five minutes of the restart when his left-footed strike was impressively kept out by Alvaro Valles, and although he was picking the ball out of his net moments later when Gabriel Jesus volleyed home, the offside flag spared his blushes.
They weren’t spared for long, though, as Jesus got his goal less than 30 seconds later when Yamal unselfishly squared for him to tap into an empty net.
Their two-goal cushion didn’t last long, just two minutes, as Abde Ezzalzouli halved the deficit, but the mass brawl that followed saw Facundo Bernal dismissed for a headbutt on Yamal, leaving his side a man down for the final 35 minutes.
That proved to be a costly head loss for Betis, who saw the game slip out of their reach on 63’ when Eric Garcia pounced inside the area to stab home from Pau Cubarsi’s knockdown.
With a comfortable advantage, Hansi Flick was able to withdraw some of his big-hitters with half an eye on a midweek UEFA Champions League clash with PSG and next weekend’s El Clasico, but that didn’t prevent Dani Olmo from adding a fifth in the final 10 minutes to round off a perfect evening that saw them equal a club record of scoring 3+ goals in nine successive games.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Lamine Yamal (Barcelona)