European football: Sevilla’s Alexis Sánchez launches rout of Barcelona

Sevilla thrashed Barcelona 4-1 on Sunday, ending the champions’ unbeaten start in La Liga and denying them an opportunity to return to the top of the table.

Sevilla took the lead in the 13th minute, after Isaac Romero went down while jostling for the ball with Ronald Araújo near Barcelona’s six-yard box. Alexis Sánchez sent former Arsenal teammate Wojciech Szczesny the wrong way to convert the spot kick.

Romero doubled Sevilla’s lead in the 37th minute, but Marcus Rashford scored from Pedri’s lobbed pass to make it 2-1 just before half-time.

Barcelona had a chance to equalise when Adnan Januzaj brought down Alejandro Balde, but Robert Lewandowski fired wide from the spot in the 76th minute before José Ángel Carmona and Akor Adams scored two late goals, as the visitors remained two points behind the leaders, Real Madrid.

“It’s one of the happiest days of my life. We deserved to win from start to finish,” said José Ángel Carmona, who scored Sevilla’s third goal.

The Barcelona midfielder Pedri said: “We lacked intensity, we couldn’t get the ball out of our half, we didn’t know what to do with the ball … we were never at our best. We need to improve a lot of things so that we can start winning games again after the break.”

Later on Sunday in Spain, Celta Vigo host Atlético Madrid. In the big game in Italy, Milan visit Juventus in the late kick-off, after Napoli host Genoa.

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