Barcelona on 'the right path' says Xavi after crushing Real Madrid in clasico

Barcelona manager Xavi Hernandez said his team's 4-0 thrashing of rivals Real Madrid on Sunday could be a significant turning point for the club after a few years that has seen the Catalans regress.

Barcelona blew Madrid away inside the Santiago Bernabeu as Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored twice either side of goals from Ronald Araujo and Ferran Torres.

The match was billed as a test of Barca's progress under Xavi and they passed with flying colours, a humiliation of their fiercest rivals suggesting they are primed to challenge again for La Liga next season. Talk of titles appeared way off when Barca, under former manager Ronald Koeman, had slumped to ninth in the table after a raft of senior players, chief among them Lionel Messi, had departed amid the club's crippling financial problems.

"It can change the dynamics of the present and the future," said Xavi, who replaced Koeman in November. "We had lots of chances and we were much better than Madrid, far superior. We deserved to score so many goals."

Asked if it meant Barcelona are now back, Xavi said: "It can be. This is the right path."

While the result might have little bearing on the title race this term – Barcelona still trail Real by 12 points albeit with a game in hand – a defeat of this magnitude, at home, and against their biggest rivals, will cause serious reverberations at Real Madrid.

It will go down with other historic Clasico thrashings, like when Barca won 6-2 at Real Madrid in 2009 under Pep Guardiola or 5-0 at home two years later.

Questions will be asked about Carlo Ancelotti's future, with Madrid outplayed tactically and technically by Xavi's Barca, who were faster, slicker and, perhaps most worryingly, could easily have won by more.

"We played badly