Espanyol returned to winning ways this evening as they thrashed struggling Zaragoza 4-0 in the Primera Division.

The Barcelona-based side have been in impressive form this season, but had lost their last three league matches prior to this one and crashed out of the Copa del Rey on Wednesday after being held at home by Atletico Madrid.

Goals from Dani Osvaldo, Luis Garcia - from the penalty spot - and Alvaro Vazquez saw the home side race into a 3-0 lead at the break and Sergio Garcia added a fourth late on to ensure a first success of 2011 for the Catalan outfit and make it eight wins from nine at Cornella for Mauricio Pochettino's men.

Zaragoza's 2-1 victory at home to Real Sociedad last weekend was the club's first since the arrival of coach Javier Aguirre in November and lifted the Aragonese outfit off the bottom of the table. But this match began badly for the visitors as Espanyol took the lead after just eight minutes.

Osvaldo - who was returning from injury but later departed with a knock - glanced a fine header past Leo Franco from Jose Callejon's pinpoint cross to open the scoring.

Callejon was upended by Diogo in the area after half an hour and Luis Garcia kept his cool to double the home side's advantage with a well-taken spot-kick which beat Franco low to his right.

And just four minutes later, Vazquez stormed into the area and blasted a third past the Argentinian goalkeeper to make it three.

Following a more subdued second half, Luis Garcia pounced on some sloppy Zaragoza defending to set up Sergio Garcia for a simple finish to make it 4-0 with four minutes left.