Villarreal star Arnaut Danjuma continued his impressive first season in Spain on Tuesday night with two goals during a victory over Valencia.
The Yellow Submarine moved to within three points of sixth place and qualification for next season’s Europa Conference League with a 2-0 win over rivals Valencia, with Unai Emery’s former Bournemouth star Danjuma scoring both goals in the win.
The Nigerian-born Dutchman opened the scoring after just ten minutes from the penalty spot, getting his and his side’s second goal just seven minutes later to complete victory inside the opening 20 minutes of the game, with just five games left in their La Liga campaign.
In doing so, Danjuma etched himself into Villarreal club history after taking his tally of league goals for the season up to ten and in almost record speed. Danjuma’s ten league goals have come in just 23 games in what is the winger’s first season in La Liga since leaving Bournemouth last summer.
Danjuma’s 23 games to get to ten league goals has put him sixth in Villarreal’s all-time list of quickest players to ten league goals. Ahead of Danjuma are Giuseppe Rossi, Ikechukwu Uche (both 16), Diego Forlan (19), Luciano Vietto (20) and Sonny Anderson (22).
Danjuma has scored 16 times in 33 appearances across all competitions this season, with his other six goals all coming in the Champions League. Danjuma will want to add to that tally further in the Champions League’s semi-finals when they face six-time European Cup winners Liverpool.
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The first meeting between the two clubs is set to take place on April 27 at Anfield, with the two sides meeting in the second leg six days later in Spain.
While this has been his first season in Spain’s top-flight, this term has not been Danjuma’s first term in the Champions League. In the 2018/19 season, Danjuma played twice in Europe’s club competition for Belgian side Club Brugge, scoring in a 3-1 defeat to Atletico Madrid before missing the other four Champions League games that season with an ankle injury.
Liverpool will have to be wary of Danjuma when the two sides meet in the Champions League, although they go into the game in red-hot form of their own.
On Tuesday night, Liverpool romped to an incredibly convincing 4-0 victory over Manchester United in the Premier League over Anfield. Mohamed Salah returned to the goals with strikes in both halves, with Luis Diaz and Sadio Mane also getting of the scoresheet.
Danjuma played a crucial role in Bournemouth getting to the Championship play-off final in the 2020/21 season. The 25-year-old scored 17 times in 37 matches in all competitions last season for the Cherries, two of which came in the play-off semi-final defeat to Brentford.
That electric form earned Danjuma a lucrative move to Villarreal last summer, believed to be for over £20m. He has also won six international caps, scoring twice against Belgium and Gibraltar.
