Image: Lamine Yamal — Biso / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).

Some weekends you defend for your life. Other weekends you just hang on and pray for full-time. Alavés had the second kind.

Barcelona battered them 6-1, and if anything the margin was kind to the visitors. This was a proper demolition — the sort where you lose count, glance at the clock, and realise there’s still half an hour of this to survive.

This is Lamine Yamal’s Barcelona now

When Barça’s attack clicks like this, it stops being a football team and becomes a problem with no solution — wave after wave, angle after angle, with teenage superstar Lamine Yamal the beating heart of it all. On their day, nobody in Spain lives with them.

A statement at the right time

Barcelona have had their wobbles this season. Six goals is how you answer the doubters without saying a word. It keeps the heat squarely on Real Madrid at the top of La Liga and reminds everyone that a Barça in the mood is a terrifying thing.

Spare a thought for Alavés

Brutal afternoon. There’s no shame in shipping six to a side playing like that — but they’ll want to burn the tape and never mention it again.

Our take: when this Barcelona front line is switched on, the only sensible plan is to foul early and apologise later.

Think you can read the goals before they happen? Back your call with our free football predictions and correct score tips.

Featured image — Photo: Biso via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)