Depay slotted home from Jordi Alba's beautiful overhead pass before Busquets doubled the lead for the Blaugrana and Antonio Arenas pulled one back for the visitors.
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Barcelona defeated Mallorca 2-1 on Sunday night to move back to the second spot in the La Liga standings. Memphis Depay scored the opening goal before Sergio Busquets doubled it after the break. Although Mallorca pulled one back through Antonio Arenas, Xavi’s side held on to the slender lead to secure the win at Camp Nou. The result helped the Catalan club to move to 66 points from 34 games. The Blaugrana desperately needed this win at home after three successive defeats at home turf. Meanwhile with Real Madrid already having secured their 35th La Liga title on Saturday, Barcelona made sure that they are well on course to secure the second spot and finish the season on a high. With four matchdays to spare, teams occupying 2nd, 3rd and 4th spot are separated by just five points.
FULL TIME! #BarçaMallorca pic.twitter.com/kIuMU4sQHP
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) May 1, 2022
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The Blaugrana came into the match on the back of a 1-0 defeat against Rayo Vallecano last week and half of the seats in the stadium were empty because of their poor run of form of late. But the hosts managed to put aside those poor results and started the match positively. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang tested the visiting goalkeeper Sergio Rico with a close range header . At the other end, Fer Nino failed to turn home Brian Olivian’s cross-cum-shot. Ronald Arujo put the ball inside the net from Jordi Alba’s cross but the linesman had raised the flag for offside.
Barcelona took the lead inside the opening 25 minutes when Alba played a beautiful overhead ball to release Depay down the left channel and the Dutchman took one touch before volleying home past Rico into the near bottom corner. Meanwhile central defender Gerard Pique was replaced with Eric Garcia before the half-hour-mark because of physical problems. Nine minutes into the second half, Mallorca failed to clear the ball properly and Busquets collected it on the edge of the box, took a touch to get past the defender and slotted home past Rico into the far bottom corner.
Few moments after the goal, Ferran Torres thought he had extended the lead but the goal was disallowed for offside. With 15 minutes remaining, Xavi brought in Ansu Fati, in place of Aubameyang. The Spaniard is coming back after a long injury layoff. The visitors were desperately try to get on the score-sheet and finally did in the 79th minute. Captain Antonio got on the end of a long free-kick to fire home a consolation from close range. The defeat left Mallorca languishing at the 16 spot 32 points from 34 games, just one point above the drop zone.
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