Brazil star Neymar and Argentine ace Lionel Messi were each in stellar form as Barcelona shook off a disappointing goalless draw at Malaga in midweek to thrash Isaac Success’ Granada 6-0 in a La Liga match at the Nou Camp on Saturday.

Neymar scored a hattrick while Messi added a brace of goals and assists as the Catalan giants returned to the top of the Spanish top flight with an emphatic win while also equalling a record for longest start to the season without conceding a goal.

Though Barça dominated play from the start, the story could have turned out a little different as Granada had the first chance on goal when Youssef El-Arabi’s effort came off the crossbar in the seventh minute.

Messi then had an effort ruled out for offside four minutes later as the home side began to get more direct and before long, it had taken the lead through Neymar whose effort in the 26th minute took a deflection on its way and looped over the Granada goalkeeper into the net.

Barcelona maintained possession of the ball and duly extended its lead with two goals in the final two minutes of the first half, first through Ivan Rakitic’s header of a Messi cross followed by a curling effort by Neymar into the top corner on the stroke of half-time.

The trend continued in the second half as Barça maintained dominance of the match, with Xavi seeing a 53rd freekick kept out by the Granada goalkeeper and Munir shooting just wide of the Granada goal moments later.

Their dominance would be rewarded just after the hour mark when Messi headed in a Dani Alves cross to make it 4-0 before Neymar scored his hattrick in the 66th minute with a composed finish after Xavi and Messi combined to set him up.

Messi completed a perfect night for the Blaugrana with his second and the team’s sixth, bearing down on goalmafter robbing Murillo of possession and sending the ball over the Granada goalkeeper eight minutes to full time.

The emphatic win sees Barça regain top spot from Valencia, having now garnered 16 points from six matches while Granada slipped to 10th spot with eight points as a result.

Elsewhere on Saturday in Spain, Atletico Madrid manager Diego Simeone marked the end of his eight-match touchline ban with a convincing 4-0 win at home to Sevilla courtesy of goals from Koke, Juanfran, Raul Garcia and Raul Jimenez.

The win put Atletico in second place with 14 points while Sevilla, unbeaten in the league heading into the match, dropped to fourth place with 13 points behind third placed Valencia – which has a game in hand – on goal difference.