An injury to Lionel Messi overshadowed Barcelona's return to the Primera Division summit. 

Barca sealed a 2-1 win over Las Palmas and replaced rivals Real Madrid after they were held to a goalless draw at the Bernabeu by 10-man Malaga.

But the loss of Messi, who took an early blow during a collision with Pedro Bigas and is now expected to be out for up to eight weeks with knee ligament damage, makes it a bittersweet day.

Luis Suarez's double was enough to secure the points for Barca at the Nou Camp, with Jonathan Viera's deflected goal late on reducing the margin.

Messi received a blow to the knee in a tangle with Pedro Bigas just three minutes into the match and although he initially tried to continue he was withdrawn six minutes later and taken to hospital.

Tests revealed a torn ligament in his left knee, and Barcelona announced the Argentina international would be out for between seven and eight weeks.

That means Messi could miss the Clasico against Real Madrid on 22 November, while he is certain to sit out Barca's Champions League fixtures with Bayern Leverkusen and BATE Borisov, league games with Sevilla, Rayo Vallecano, Eibar, Getafe and Villarreal, plus Argentina's World Cup qualifiers against Ecuador, Paraguay, Colombia and Brazil.

"I'm always sad when one of my players gets injured and even more when it's Messi," Luis Enrique said.
"But we need to accept the challenge and understand that this is part of football and get through it.

"We will not change our style of play without Messi, although there are many moments in games in which Messi liberates us and finds solutions for us, so we'll have to strengthen in other areas and the team will have to step up without him."

Real will wonder how they failed to put away Malaga, having had 31 attempts on goal and two strikes disallowed, one from Cristiano Ronaldo in the eighth minute and one from Isco in stoppage time.

The door appeared to open for them when Nordin Amrabat was dismissed with 13 minutes still to play, but Rafael Benitez's side could not beat visiting goalkeeper Carlos Kameni.