It was a case of in at the deep end for Giedrius Arlauskis tonight as his Espanyol debut ended in a 6-0 defeat at Real Madrid.

The Lithuanian international goalkeeper, whose loan move to the La Liga side was confirmed on Thursday following the arrival of Costel Pantilimon at Vicarage Road, was helpless to prevent Zinedine Zidane’s side moving to within four points of leaders Barcelona thanks in no small part to Cristiano Ronaldo’s 39th career hat-trick.

Madrid were 4-0 up by half-time after Karim Benzema had opened the scoring, Ronaldo netted his first from the penalty spot, James Rodriguez made it three before the former Manchester United star netted a fine fourth just before the break.

With the game won, the hosts didn’t make it five until the 82nd minute when Ronaldo completed his treble before an Oscar Duarte completed Espanyol’s misery.

Elsewhere this weekend, Matej Vydra continued his scoring streak in the FA Cup, taking his tally to six in three ties as Reading beat Walsall 4-0 to book their place in the fifth round.

Having scored once in the 2-2 draw at Huddersfield and then a hat-trick in the Royals’ 5-2 third round replay victory, the Czech Republic international netted twice more yesterday as Brian McDermott’s side secured a home tie against either West Bromwich Albion or Peterborough United in this afternoon’s fifth round draw.

Daniel Pudil’s FA Cup hopes are over for this season though, as he watched on from the bench as Sheffield Wednesday suffered a shock 3-2 defeat at Shrewsbury Town. Former Hornet Lewis McGugan scored both of the Owls’ goals.

Uche Ikpeazu was a 78th-minute replacement as Blackpool beat Gillingham 1-0 in League One on Saturday, while Alessandro Diamanti came on in the 23rd minute in Atalanta’s 1-1 draw with Sassulo in Serie A.

Miguel Layun was once again named in the starting XI as Porto recovered from conceding an early goal to win 3-1 at Estoril in Portugal’s Liga.