It is a mark of a team’s dominance when a ‘shaky spell’ contains one defeat in nine games. In a week when their fiercest rivals, Real Madrid, crashed out of Europe and squandered an excellent chance to put some pressure on the league leaders, Barcelona put five goals past Lyon and on Sunday scored six against Malaga.

83,000 fans watched as Xavi, Leo Messi, Thierry Henry, Dani Alves, and Samuel Eto’o put Malaga to the sword. Barcelona began the game well but Malaga held out for 18 minutes until the Eto’o threaded a ball through to the onrushing Xavi.

The Spaniard took a touch and then buried the ball into the bottom corner. The second came just six minutes later when Leo Messi collected the ball on the right hand side, dribbled past three defenders and smashed the ball into the top corner. After 32 minutes Barcelona scored their third goal. This time Xavi found Henry with a through ball. The Frenchman skipped past the goalkeeper and tapped the ball home.

With the game effectively over Barcelona could have been forgiven for taking their feet off the gas. Unfortunately for Malaga, this was not to be and Barcelona scored a fourth before half-time. Xavi again played the killer pass, this time to Eto’o who was lurking on the right side of the area. The Cameroonian struck his shot first time into the Malaga goal.

The second half saw the goal of the match scored after 50 minutes. Andreas Iniesta chipped a ball over the back line and into the path of right-back, Alves. His neat header looped over the goalkeeper and into the net. Six minutes later, Eto’o struck to make it six for the home team. The Cameroonian international was fed the ball on the edge of the six yard box from Henry, and Eto’o made no mistake with the finish. Eto’o now has a whopping 25 goals in 27 league games and along with the rest of his teammates, looks set to score many more.