Valencia striker Hugo Duro signs new deal until 2028

Valencia striker Hugo Duro renewed his contract with the Spanish club on Thursday until June 2028, two more seasons than he had already signed with the club, which he joined in the summer of 2021 on loan with an option to buy.
The 24-year-old Duro, who enjoyed his best season in front of goal last term, scoring 13 goals in 39 appearances, signed a new contract that includes a salary increase for the coming seasons after establishing himself as Ruben Baraja's main striker.
The player had even better figures than in the 2021/22 season, when he scored ten goals in 36 games, one of them in the Copa del Rey final in Sevilla, which led the club to exercise the striker's option to buy him for around four million euros.
However, Duro lost his first-team place in the 2022-23 season and had little continuity with the arrival of Gennaro Gattuso and, in fact, only featured in 13 games over the course of the season, a situation that saw him underperform the figures of the previous season, scoring just two goals in 34 games played.
However, in mid-February 2023, the arrival of Ruben Baraja was key to his recovery. Although he did not score, the player did enter into the plans of the coach from Valladolid and earned more minutes in the restructuration of the squad brought about by Baraja, who brought in players like him and younger players such as Javi Guerra, Diego Lopez and Alberto Marí.
The possibility of doing a pre-season with Baraja opened the door for him to become a starter from the start of the season and, as a result, he scored 13 league goals that helped the team to finish ninth in La Liga.