FC Barcelona moved to the top of the La Liga table on Monday night after humiliating Real Madrid 5- 0 at the Camp Nou Stadium.

The reigning league champions gave a footballing lesson to the team coached by Jose Mourinho which had traveled to Barcelona with one point lead over the Catalans.

However, if Madrid had ambitions of scoring a win, they were in for a real shock as Barcelona outplayed them from start to finish.

There was one change in the Real Madrid starting 11 after Gonzalo Higuain failed a fitness test and was replaced by Karim Benzema.

Higuain had struggled with a back problem during the week and took his place on the substitutes' bench.

Barcelona's starting lineup was as expected with Busquets, Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez in midfield, behind a three man attack of Leo Messi, David Villa and Pedro Rodriguez.

Barca began well and Messi was unlucky to see his chip from a narrow angle bounce back from the inside of the Madrid post after just five minutes.

It was only a temporary let off as three minutes later Xavi opened the score. Iniesta's shot took a deflection and his companion kept his calmness to lift the ball past Iker Casillas.

De Maria forced Valdes into action, but Barca quickly doubled their lead after Villa crossed from the rest and although Casillas touched the ball, Pedro was on hand to score from close range.

Barca were playing their usual passing game and threatened to tear Madrid apart as the visitors looked to be defending further forward than usual and leaving space at their backs.

Villa was unlucky to be pulled up for offside and Casillas did well to come off his line to stop Pedro again as Madrid was in danger of being overrun.

Ronaldo showed his frustration in an incident with Barca coach Pep Guardiola, which earned him a yellow card, before Pepe was also booked for pulling Messi back.

The first half had been totally Barca's and Mourinho responded by replacing Ozil with Lassana Diarra at the start of the second half to play with three central midfielders.

It had little effect as Messi set up Xavi, who should have scored rather than hit the side netting with Casillas being beaten just a couple of minutes before Villa scored Barca's third after another piece of Messi's magic.

The same pair combined for Villa to score the fourth after 57 minutes as Barcelona threatened to run rampant and the only real surprise was that the final goal didn't arrive until injury time when the two substitutes Bojan and Jeffren combined for Jeffren to make it 5-0.

Moments later Sergio Ramos was sent off for a brutal foul on Messi to end a miserable night for Real Madrid.