Racing Santander custodian Dudu Aouate thwarts Ronaldo during their Spanish league match on Saturday. Real Madrid were awarded a penalty which Ronaldo converted. Real won 5-0. (AP)

Madrid: Real Madrid kept up the pressure on leaders Barcelona by notching up their seventh win in a row with a crushing 5-0 victory at home to lowly Racing Santander on Saturday.

A neatly worked goal from Michael Owen and a Ronaldo penalty set Real on the way in the first half.

Skipper Raul capped his best performance of the season after the break with a double and Ronaldo completed an emphatic win with a fine solo effort in stoppage time.

The victory left Real three points behind Barcelona with three games to play after this weekend’s matches.

The Catalans have the additional advantage of knowing that if the teams finish level on points at the end of the season they will win the title thanks to a better head-to-head record.

Barcelona have a tough away match against last season’s champions Valencia who need a win to boost their chances of earning a Champions League place.

Sevilla missed the chance to pull clear of their rivals for a place in Europe when they lost 0-1 at arch-rivals Real Betis in a typically passionate and bad-tempered city derby.

Brazilian striker Ricardo Oliveira scored his 19th goal of the season with a sharp shot from 22 metres after seven minutes to give his side their first home win over their neighbours in 10 years.

Despite their defeat Sevilla remain third with 58 points, but are now only three ahead of Betis and fifth-placed Villarreal who travel to Malaga next.

Real Mallorca’s hopes of avoiding relegation were dealt a serious blow when a late header from striker Savo Milosevic allowed Osasuna to snatch a 1-1 draw at El Sadar.

The result left Mallorca three points behind Levante, who are just above the relegation zone and play fellow strugglers Albacete in their next game.

Athletic Bilbao boosted their hopes of claiming a place in the Uefa Cup with a 2-0 home win over Real Zaragoza that pushed the Basque side up to eighth in the table.

Real took the lead against a timid-looking Racing when they completed a lightning break with a slickly worked goal just before the half hour.

Raul raced through the midfield, lofted the ball over the Racing defence to Ronaldo who cut a first-time pass back towards Owen and the England striker scored his 12th goal of the season when he guided the ball home with the outside of his foot.

Ronaldo’s ‘century’

Five minutes later Real were awarded a controversial penalty as referee Eduardo Iturralde Gonzalez penalised Racing’s Aouate after the ’keeper palmed the ball away from Ronaldo and collided with the Brazilian striker who had gone in with his foot high.

Ronaldo scored his 100th league goal in Spain when he hit the spot-kick high into the net.

Raul added a third by drilling home after Aouate could only manage to push a Roberto Carlos cross into his path eight minutes after the break.

The Real skipper then fired a low shot into the corner after Owen had picked him out on the edge of the area.

Ronaldo put the icing on the cake in stoppage time when he scored his 20th of the season, rounding Aouate with a trademark shimmy and rolling the ball into the empty net after a perfectly weighted through ball from substitute Luis Figo.

Arsenal look virtually certain to finish as Premier League runners-up after beating Liverpool 3-1 in a fluctuating match at Highbury on Sunday. Goals from Robert Pires, Jose Antonio Reyes and Franceso Fabregas put Arsenal six points ahead of Manchester United with two games to play and their superior goal difference means they look certain to qualify directly for next season’s Champions League.

Defeat ended Liverpool’s hopes of finishing fourth and although they can look forward to the Champions League final against AC Milan they will not be in next season’s competition.

One of the tightest relegation battles in Premier League history was still balanced on a knife edge after a dramatic penultimate round of fixtures on Saturday. The bottom four clubs are all still alive, although Norwich City are now slight favourites to stay up after moving out of the relegation zone with a 1-0 home win against Birmingham City.

The full significance of victory only became apparent after the final whistle blew at Carrow Road as news filtered through that Southampton’s Danny Higginbotham had scored a last-gasp equaliser in a 2-2 draw at Crystal Palace.

That result meant Norwich climbed out of the drop zone for the first time since January.

Four consecutive home wins have given Norwich 33 points, one more than Southampton and Crystal Palace on 32 while West Bromwich Albion, who secured a battling 1-1 draw at Manchester United in a late kickoff, are bottom with 31 points.

Norwich boss Nigel Worthington said he initially thought his side were still in the relegation zone after mistakenly being told that Crystal Palace had beaten Southampton 3-1.

Norwich, without an away league victory all season, travel to Fulham next Sunday where a win would condemn Southampton to the drop after 27 years of unbroken top-flight football.

Palace manager Iain Dowie said he was left ?numb? as his side were deprived of the three points that would have lifted them out of the drop zone with just next week’s south London derby against Charlton Athletic to come. (Reuters)