Super Eagles’ dashing winger Samuel Chukwueze’s quest with Villarreal for top flight action in Europe next season suffered a big dent following a home loss to LaLiga title chasing FC Barcelona yesterday.
Although the AFCON 2019 bronze medal winner with Nigeria opened the score for his side in the crucial home match, it was an Antoine Griezmann’s double that gave Barcelona a 2-1 victory over Villarreal and kept Ronald Koeman’s team on course to win LaLiga, if they win their remaining games and leaders Atletico slump.
The loss thus meant Villarreal will remain in seventh position with 49 points but six more matches left to play as they continue with the struggle for Europa League spot alongside Real Sociedad and Real Betis that pulled a valuable 0-0 score line at Real Madrid on Saturday night.
As for Barcelona, they moved level on points with second place Real Madrid but with a game in hand and have Atletico Madrid, who they still have to play, in their sights.
There were two big scares however: the first when they went behind early, and the second when Leo Messi stayed down in agony after a red card challenge from Manu Trigueros.
Griezmann could have put Barcelona in the lead after just five minutes when Frenkie de Jong teed him up perfectly but his shot was blocked for a corner.
At the other end Villarreal top scorer Gerard Moreno shot over from Samuel Chukwueze’s cross.
Unai Emery’s team were a match for Barcelona early on and when Trigueros spun away from Gerard Pique and slid a pass through to Paco Alcacer the midfielder’s assist deserved a better finish from the Spain forward.
Barcelona had their best early chance on 15 minutes when Griezmann played Jordi Alba to the byline and he crossed for De Jong unmarked at the back post but the Dutchman’s shot was saved on his line by Sergio Asenjo. The keeper then kept out Messi’s shot as his near post.
Villarreal took the lead on 27 minutes and it was Chukwueze’s pace that did for Barcelona’s defence. Paul Torres stepped out from the back and played Villarreal’s lightning quick winger into space. Jordi Alba had followed the Nigerian forward across from the left flank to the right but he slipped and Chukwueze stepped around Ter Stegen to score.
Barcelona’s response was immediate and the story of two dinks. First Oscar Mingueza dinked the ball over the top of Villarreal’s defence and, running on to it, Griezmann dinked the ball over Asenjo for an instant equalizer.
Griezmann then put Barcelona into the lead 10 minutes before the break with another gift of a pass, this time from one of his rivals. Tottenham loanee Juan Foyfth passed the ball back to his keeper but it was cut out en-route by the alert Frenchman who scored his 11th of the season in La Liga.
