Ousmane Dembele was acclaimed by Barcelona coach Ernesto Valverde after his two goals underpinned a 5-1 La Liga rout of Villarreal.

Dembele produced his best performance since his £135.5million move from Borussia Dortmund last summer with his pace and footwork proving impossible to contain.

“Dembele had a great game. He’s a very talented player indeed. His last goal was lovely,” Valverde said in quotes reported on the Barcelona website.

“We are expecting big things from him. He’s still very young and has a long time ahead to show his class. All new players need some time to adapt.

“We totally dominated the play in the first half and created loads of chances to score.”

Andres Iniesta, who is playing his final season in Spain, set up two goals to help Barcelona continue their quest to become the first team to finish a LaLiga season unbeaten.

“We’re very pleased with the match. We still have the goal of completing the season unbeaten. That would be very special,” Iniesta said.

“In sport you are looking for motivations. We don’t want to drop our guard because we have a very nice target, to be unbeaten.”