Real Madrid moved to within six points of LaLiga leaders FC Barcelona with a 3-1 win over Espanyol at the Santiago Bernabeu on Saturday afternoon.
With Karim Benzema side-lined through injury, Madrid started Luka Modric from the draw at Real Betis and Dani Carvajal as well as Nacho Fernandez featured too.
Espanyol stunned the host with an eight minute lead after Ruben Sanchez burst through Eduardo Camavinga and cross for Joselu to slot in from point-blank range.
Los Blancos hit back a little later when Vinicius Junior peeled off a pass from Toni Kroos and charged down the left flank to curl in the bottom-corner.
The European champions very nearly got a second shortly thereafter with another curler around the area from Rodrygo this time around, but the Brazilians went over.
However, the host did go ahead in the closing five minutes to halftime when Eder Militao rose on the end of Aurelien Tchouameni's pin-point cross and nodded in off the underside of the crossbar.
Espanyol had a confident opening to the second period and on a few occasions threatened to draw level with a couple of efforts, but Los Blancos managed to clear their lines.
Los Blancos refreshed their line-up around the closing quarter and in came Marco Asensio for Modric before Dani Ceballos took the place of Kroos.
Madrid should've made it three in the last 15 minutes with a free-kick from 25-yards of the area by Rodrygo, but he hit the woodwork.
The defending champions did made the points safe in added time as Asensio brought a pass from Nacho under control and dinked over goalkeeper Fernando Pacheco.
Asensio wasn't done and set-up Federico Valverde with an inside pass for their fourth seconds to full-time, but he didn't find target and regardless saw out the victory.
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