Barcelona have long been viewed by the partisan Madrid press as chokers, and the latest results from La Liga will only encourage the baying mob further. The league leaders, who have been unassailable at home recently, lost 2-1 to bottom side Espanyol leaving Real Madrid to close the gap to seven points by thumping Real Betis 6-1. As well as the psychological damage caused, the defeat is doubly humiliating for Barça in that they lost to their local rivals while losing ground to their national rivals. There is also the trifling matter that Espanyol have been struggling all season and a supremely talented team such as Barcelona would rightly regard them as cannon fodder.

In only their second defeat of the campaign, a nervous Barcelona fell apart either side of half-time. Seydou Keita was sent off just before the break and then former Barcelona player Ivan de la Pena scored twice just after the restart. Yaya Toure pulled one back just past the hour but unlike last week's tense draw with Betis, Barcelona couldn't find the equaliser.

Real took full advantage with an impressive display, Klaas Jan Huntelaar and Raul both scoring twice with Gonzalo Higuain and Sergio Ramos also on target, all before half-time. Real have been a resurgent side under new manager Juande Ramos, but until now their hopes of catching Barça would have been dismissed by anyone outside the capital. Now, though, anything seems possible and Barcelona fans will have been uncomfortably reminded of the 2006-7 season, when a draw with Espanyol left the title open for Fabio Capello's Real, in an incident described as the 'Fuck of the century' by the Spanish press.