The Ghanaian came out victorious with his team as the Nigeria duo suffered defeat in their first league game since March
Mohamed Salisu played a vital role in helping Real Valladolid defeat Kenneth Omeruo and Chidozie Awaziem’s Leganes 2-1 in Saturday’s La Liga encounter.
The African stars were on parade from start to finish at Estadio Municipal de Butarque as goals from Ruben Alcaraz and Enes Unal secured maximum points for the visitors.
Omeruo and Awaziem partnered each other at the centre of Leganes’ defence but the latter’s error contributed to the opening goal in the opening minutes.
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A miscommunication between Awaziem and an on-rushing goalkeeper Pichu Cuellar in the second minute made Unal break the deadlock for Valladolid after putting the ball into an empty net.
Meanwhile, Omeruo had a good outing with the most interception [3], the most passes [74], the most aerial balls won [7] and most touches [80] in Javier Aguirre’s team.
Salisu, on his part, was impressive for Real Valladolid, having the best pass accuracy [81.3 per cent] and completing the only successful dribble for the White and Violets in the encounter.
The Ghanaian defender is one of the regular fixtures in Sergio Gonzalez’s side, featuring in every of Valladolid’s league games so far this season.
The defeat compounded Leganes’ relegation woes as they are level on 23 points with bottom-placed Espanyol after 28 games while Valladolid climbed to 14th with 32 points gathered after the same number of matches.
Saturday’s outing was Omeruo’s 20th appearance in La Liga this campaign, one ahead of Awaziem who is on a season-long loan from Portuguese giants Porto.
Following the disappointing home result, Leganes will be hoping to secure their sixth league win of the season when they visit Barcelona at Camp Nou on Tuesday.
Salisu’s Real Valladolid will be looking to build on their win when they host Celta Vigo on Wednesday.
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On the international scene, Omeruo and Awaziem are regular fixtures in Gernot Rohr’s Nigeria team while Salisu is yet to be invited to the Ghana national team.
The 21-year-old who was born in Accra, teamed up with Real Valladolid’s youth team in 2017 from local side African Talent Football Academy.
He has emerged as a transfer target for several European clubs including Ligue 1 side Rennes after his impressive debut campaign in the Spanish top-flight.
