Real Madrid coach Manuel Pellegrini was a happy man after watching his side see off Real Mallorca on Sunday but felt they should have been celebrating a much bigger margin of victory.

Madrid won 2-0 thanks to goals at the start of each half from Gonzalo Higuain and Esteban Granero, and that victory saw the Whites take over top spot in La Liga for a couple of hours until Barcelona reclaimed it with their 5-0 win over Tenerife in the evening.

The triumph, which was secured amid snowy conditions at the Bernabeu, also saw Madrid make it nine wins from nine at home this season, and Pellegrini had few complaints following the match. "It was important to win and pick up three points more. The team had a very good game in every aspect," he said.

"It was difficult because of the weather but also because of the many changes we had in the starting XI, such as the return of Kaka and (Fernando) Gago, and because our opponents came here in good form and with confidence high. The scoreline did not reflect what happened in the game, we had many goalscoring chances."

Pellegrini was also full of praise for his defence, which has kept three successive clean sheets since losing key centre-back Pepe to what looks set to be a season-ending injury just before Christmas.

"I also want to stress that we were very solid in defence, so I'm very happy for the points we got and the effort we put in," the former Villarreal coach said.