A sprightly and often frantic opening from both sides saw a constant switching of possession, though it would be eight minutes before any notable chances arrived, as Elche’s David Affengruber gave the ball away to Alejandro Balde, who subsequently fed Lamine Yamal to smash home a left-footed effort.
Just four minutes later, Adrià Pedrosa’s slip allowed Fermín López to power forward and put the ball on a plate for Ferran Torres to make it 2-0, and ensure that Barcelona’s streak of scoring multiple goals in H2Hs would reach 11 games.
To Elche’s credit, they refused to sit back in the face of a dominant team aiming for a sixth win in seven home games this term.
But this simply invited Barça onto them, and the Catalans’ chances kept coming, with both Marcus Rashford and Fermín coming close, while only a last-ditch block from Pedrosa stopped the former from adding to the scoreline.
Iñaki Peña then went full length to deny Torres, but out of nothing, Elche’s Rafa Mir beat a weak offside trap before curling a brilliant effort past Wojciech Szczęsny as half time approached.
The usual flow immediately resumed, though, and after Peña’s stunning one-handed save from Torres in first-half stoppage time, which kept his side in the match, the break did nothing to disrupt Barcelona’s momentum.
Rashford was the first to try to increase the gap after half-time, when he wasted a golden chance right at the start of the second half, and then saw a goal ruled out after Fermín was penalised for being offside earlier in the move.
Eager to make Barcelona pay for their profligacy, Mir almost scored Elche’s second, grazing the crossbar with a carbon copy of his earlier effort, before Rashford got his deserved goal, smashing home off the woodwork from an acute angle.
Still determined to rescue something as a one-man army, Mir rattled the frame of the goal again with just over 20 minutes to play, and shot straight at Szczęsny when well placed not long afterwards.
Nothing else came from his efforts, however, and the result means it’s now four league games without a win for Elche (D1, L3), whilst Barcelona extend their unbeaten head-to-head record over the Costa Blanca outfit to 22 matches (W18, D4).
Flashscore Man of the Match: Marcus Rashford (Barcelona)