Villarreal were indebted to the masterful Gerard Moreno on Saturday afternoon and none more so the Spaniard’s much-maligned strike partner.
Moreno seemed to take Alexander Isak’s stunning opener as something of a personal affront. Like poking a hungry tiger with the sharp end of a stick. His response was to produce a performance as brutal as it was beautiful.
Two clinical headers turned a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead.
And when Moreno raced away on the counter with 96 minutes on the clock, the end-result was inevitable. Samu Chukwueze was never going to miss after being served up the simplest of tap-ins on a silver platter, Villarreal’s head-chef turning waiter in stoppage time.
Boulaye Dia was off the pitch by then.
The £11 million summer signing drew a blank for the 12th time in 13 La Liga matches in San Sebastien. How, only he knows.
Latching onto a typically instinctive Moreno flick when the score was still 0-0, Dia controlled a bouncing ball before slicing a mile over the bar when eye-to-eye with the home team’s grateful goalkeeper.
Can Boulaye Dia prove his doubters wrong in La Liga?
It was a moment that summed up Dia’s Villarreal career. Two goals in 20 games across all competitions thus far.
If the Senegal international wanted to prove that his prolific 2020/21 campaign at Reims was more than a mere flash in the pan, then he’s not exactly going about things the right way.
11 months ago, Dia was one of the most coveted strikers in Western Europe. His agent, Frederic Guerra, even admitted that West Ham United had held talks with the Ligue 1 hotshot.
“We talked a lot with West Ham,” Guerra said. “He is a player who interests them.”
David Moyes’ high-flying Hammers had reservations about meeting Reims’ £12 million price-tag, however, and backed away from the deal.
One wonders, as the ball came down from the San Sebastian sky coated in a layer of snow, whether Villarreal should have done the same.
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