An early goal-line clearance from Barca’s Alejandro Balde set the tone in this one.
The visitors were then awarded a penalty when Marcos Alonso blocked Fermin Lopez’s goal-bound effort with his hand, and Robert Lewandowski made no mistake from the spot.
Celta keeper Ionut Radu soon saved a one-on-one from Marcus Rashford, before the hosts went straight up the other end and slammed home the equaliser courtesy of Sergio Carreira.
Neither side was able to control possession for long periods, though, giving a real ebb and flow to proceedings in the opening half-hour.
Celta continued to threaten on the break through Ferran Jutgla and Borja Iglesias, but as half-time approached, Rashford’s tempting inswinging cross beat the entire Celta defence and allowed Lewandowski to volley home through Radu’s legs.
Soon after Barca moved in front, Jutgla’s cross found an unmarked Iglesias on the edge of the area, and his exquisite first-time shot into the roof of the net gave Wojciech Szczesny no chance.
During six minutes of first-half stoppage time, Lamine Yamal smashed home a right-footed half-chance to give the Catalans the lead at the interval.
Barca seized the initiative in the second period, and it took Celta six minutes to finally get out of their own half.
The visitors stroked the ball around with ease, forcing the Galicians to put 10 men behind the ball, which resulted in no goalbound efforts of note from either side over the course of the next 20 minutes.
As the game reached its latter stages, Rashford’s corner found Lewandowski at the near post, and his guided header went in off the far post for the Polish international’s hat-trick goal.
Try as Celta might, they were unable to trouble Szczesny thanks to some brilliant game management by the visitors to see out the final few minutes.
A stoppage-time red card for Frenkie de Jong puts only a slight dampener on a result that means that Barcelona took full advantage of Real Madrid’s slip-up at Rayo Vallecano earlier in the day, and are now just three points behind Los Blancos.
Despite their recent strong form, Celta still find themselves 13th in LaLiga, and must therefore make sure they do not dwell too much on this loss moving forward as they look to climb up the table.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Robert Lewandowski (Barcelona)
Check out all the match stats with Flashscore.
