Real Madrid beat Espanyol, Valencia climbs out of bottom three in La Liga

MADRID, March 11 (Xinhua) -- Real Madrid put the pressure on La Liga leader FC Barcelona on Sunday with a relatively comfortable 3-1 win at home to Espanyol.

Joselu's powerful finish in the eighth minute put Espanyol ahead, but Vinicius Jr scored an individual goal to equalize just 14 minutes later.

Eder Militao then powered in a header off the underside of the bar in the 39th minute and Marco Asensio, who came on as a 70th-minute substitute, added a third in the 93rd minute.

Iago Aspas scored twice as Celta Vigo continued their recovery with a 3-0 win at home to Rayo Vallecano, who have now gone five games without a win. The goal all came in the second half, with Pathe Ciss conceding an own goal in the 52nd minute.

Justin Kluivert's 74th-minute goal separated the two sides in a match that saw the VAR overturn two yellow cards initially shown to Osasuna players Sergio Herrera and Chimy Avila.

Herrera then saved a last-minute penalty from Valencia striker Hugo Duro, although the win was enough to lift Valencia out of the bottom three.

Valladolid ended up with just eight players on the pitch in their 1-1 draw away to bottom-side Elche.

The visitors had looked to be on for an important win after Cyle Larin put them ahead in the third minute and hung on until second-half injury time when everything went wrong.

Darwin Machis went off injured with all of the substitutes on the pitch. Tete Morente leveled for Elche in the 96th minute and in the remaining five minutes of injury time, Roque Mesa and Martin Hongla were both dismissed after seeing second yellow cards.

There was controversy as Cadiz and Getafe drew 2-2 on Friday night in a match that saw three penalties and two red cards.

Cadiz took the lead thanks to Ruben Sobrino, but Enes Unal leveled for Getafe in the first of two penalties for the visitors on the hour.

Ruben Alcaraz's 82nd-minute penalty looked to have given Cadiz three vital points, but referee Hernandez Hernandez then awarded Getafe a second penalty, which Unal took and scored in the 16th minute of added time.

Cadiz's Isaac Carcelen was then shown a red card for aggression after the final whistle.