Madrid, Spain (SportsNetwork.com) - Real Madrid moved to within five points of the top spot in La Liga on Monday after easing to a 3-0 victory over Celta Vigo behind a double from Cristiano Ronaldo at the Bernabeu.
Real entered the day trailing Barcelona and Atletico Madrid by seven points in the table and needed a three-point effort on home soil to keep the pressure on the leaders.
But early on Real Madrid was wasteful with its opportunities on goal and went into the halftime break scoreless against a Celta Vigo side that sat in 17th place and was battling relegation.
In the second half, however, manager Carlo Ancelotti made a pair of offensive- minded substitutions, bringing on Jese for Isco in the 62nd minute, and Gareth Bale for Angel Di Maria in the 65th minute.
The personnel changes paid off as Real finally broke the deadlock in the 67th minute when Jese worked his way to the end line on the left flank before sending a low cross into the penalty area where Karim Benzema was there to flick it into the top right corner with the outside of his boot.
Ronaldo struck for his first goal of the night nine minutes from time as he turned home a low cross from Daniel Carvajal before finishing his brace in stoppage time in much the same fashion, this time blasting home a cross from Bale for his 20th goal of the campaign.
The result drops Celta Vigo into 18th place in La Liga with 16 points from 18 matches, one adrift from safety.
Also in La Liga on Monday, Ikechukwu Uche bagged a hat trick and Jeremy Perbet added a brace to lead Villarreal to a convincing 5-2 thrashing of Rayo Vallecano at the Campo de Futbol de Vallecas.
