Aston Villa boss Unai Emery reiterated his belief in Jhon Duran after his crucial impact in our 3-3 draw with Liverpool on Monday night.
The 20-year-old has been limited to a squad player role this season behind Ollie Watkins, but has managed to contribute eight goals in 36 appearances across all competitions.
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While he continues to adapt and learn from Emery to meet his demands both as an attacking threat but also tactically as part of the collective, Duran is gaining valuable experience and developing as a young player with a potentially big future ahead of him.
It hasn’t always been smooth this season with talk off the pitch linking him with an exit, and perhaps a loan move elsewhere next season would benefit his progress.
That said, he’s played an important role for us this year and offers a crucial different dynamic in the final third with his physicality, aerial threat and ability to offer more of a focal point when leading the line, and that’s critical to our strength in finding different ways to break teams down.
Although there is clearly still a lot of work to do for him to be a more effective fit on a consistent basis, Emery continues to back Duran and insists that he believes in his ability to be a key figure for Villa moving forward.
“He is very young, 20 years old,” Emery told the media in his post-match press conference. “His potential is impossible to predict how far he is going to get. I believe in him. Different football in Colombia, tactically the football is very different in the Premier League.
“We’re working with him a lot. I know he’s going to score and get chances and use his power. His potential is clear but we need to manage him as a young person but today I’m very happy how he helped us today because this is the consequence, we drew and we were close to scoring at the end with Moussa’s chance.”
Emery’s comments came after captain John McGinn praised the young Colombian international, but also conceded that he can be a “bit nuts at times” and a “nightmare to have on your team at times” when speaking to Sky Sports in his post-match interview.
In turn, there is clearly work to be done still on his mentality and his sacrifice for the team if the captain and coach are both saying similar things. However, if Duran can get that bit right and continue to make important contributions like he did against Liverpool, then Villa certainly have a quality player in the squad capable of having a big future with us.
Focus will now switch to Crystal Palace on Sunday as it remains to be seen if Villa will still need a win in that game at Selhurst Park to secure Champions League football for next season, and off the back of his heroics on Monday night, time will tell if Duran is rewarded with a start alongside Watkins for our final game of the campaign.
