Aspas leads Celta to victory over Las Palmas

Iago Aspas posted a hat-trick here as Celta pounded UD Las Palmas 5-2 in a football match that saw the visitors climb to 10th place in La Liga.

The hosts looked the better of the two sides in the opening minutes, getting aerial balls into the box only to lose most of the one-on-one battles to the Celta defenders on Monday, reports Efe.

Emre Mor put the visitors up 1-0 in the 16th minute and Las Palmas found themselves back on their heels. Aspas took advantage of his opponents' disarray to make it 2-0 for Celta just four minutes later.

With the lead, Celta ceded the initiative on offense to Las Palmas, who kept visiting goalkeeper Ruben Blanco busy for the rest of the first half.

The home side tried to carry that energy over into the second period, but Aspas struck again in the 49th minute to increase Celta's advantage to 3-0.

In the 52nd minute, a blunder by one of his defenders forced Blanco to come out against an onrushing Jonathan Calleri and the keeper's challenge earned him a red card, reducing Celta to 10 men for the rest of the match.

Even so, Celta went on to score two more goals -- Pablo Hernandez connected in the 71st minute and Aspas completed the triple five minutes -- before conceding two to Las Palmas in stoppage time.

--IANS

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