Emmanuel Boateng shines in his China top-flight China debut

Ghana winger Emmanuel Boateng looks to have justified his high price tag when he excelled with his skills, bag of tricks and a disallowed goal in his first match for Chinese side Dalian Yifang on Sunday.

The 22-year-old played his first game for the Chinese Super League side Dalian Yifang's 1-1 draw at Henan Jianye on the opening weekend of the top-flight and showed glimpses of why the club laboured to sign him from Spanish side Levante last month.

Several bookmakers like w88 were optimistic that the youngster would be an instant hit in China and they were not far from right as he terrorized the defence of Henan Jianye with pace and skills.

The new signing was handed a starting role by coach Choi Kang-Hee and played the entire duration as he set up several scoring chances and a goal he scored was disallowed.

However, his team-mate and Belgium international Yannick Ferreira-Carrasco scored in injury time to snatch a draw for the away side after Henrique Dourado gave the home the lead in the 26th minute.

Boateng's performance was clear for all to see as in the 18th minute the Ghana international broke free from the right side of the midfielder before cutting through the defence before setting up Hamsik for the great scoring opportunity in the penalty area but the striker's kick was saved by Wu Haofei.

The pace of Boateng kept the home side in their area as their defenders struggled to contain the former Levante player and moments later pressed the goalkeeper Wu Hao to head the ball in.

The ball went straight to the goal and even though was cleared by the Jianye defender on the goal line it has crossed for a goal.

As Boateng was preparing to cheer and celebrate the goal the referee whistled to signal him that he had collided with the goalkeeper which is a foul.

The Ghana international completed his transfer to the Chinese side from Levante on a three-year contract last month after Dalian Yifang paid in full €11 million transfer fee demanded by the Spanish club.

Yifang delayed in paying the money because they had to pay the amount in full as in China, for all football transfers above 7 million euros, clubs are taxed 100%.

Levante had to fork out €2.9 million to sign Boateng from Portuguese side Moreirense in 2017 which means they made a decent profit in his transfer after just one season at the club.

The highlight of his career came last season when he scored a hat-trick against Barcelona, bringing his name to the limelight in football circles.

With the Ghanaian not having playing time and the African Cup of Nations looming in Egypt in June, Boateng is making the decision to attract the attention of Ghana coach Kwesi Appiah.