Having made the decision to go into the season with just two natural forwards in the squad, there was a lot of expectation and pressure on Aston Villa striker Jhon Duran.
After arriving in January from Chicago Fire, the 19-year-old showed glimpses of his talent and potential in 12 Premier League outings last season, totalling 124 minutes of playing time, but he ultimately ended goalless and without an assist.
Sign up for the Talk Villa newsletter, a free weekly Villa round-up delivered straight to you!
Pre-season this past summer was then seen as crucial for his development and integration, also as an opportunity to meet the tactical and physical demands of Unai Emery and to prove that he could be an important fit for our system and preferred style of play.
Duran offers a different dynamic in the final third given his characteristics and attributes, and that will prove to be vital over the course of the season. Having suffered an injury which prevented him from having that fundamental learning experience in pre-season though, there was concern that we’d perhaps left ourselves too light up top to manage a gruelling schedule this year.
Albeit still a small sample size, Duran has scored three goals in six appearances to start the season, and while he has continued to impress in most of those outings, this was his most important and decisive contribution yet having sparked our comeback in a 3-1 win over Crystal Palace.
While he took his goal against Hibernian really well to extend our commanding aggregate lead and bagged his first Premier League goal in a comfortable 4-0 win over Everton last month, this was a game and scenario in which there was real pressure to deliver, and he certainly did that with an emphatic finish for our equaliser.
Particularly with Ollie Watkins still searching for his best form and his first league goal of the campaign, the importance of Duran making an impact off the bench has become more prominent.
Prior to the season starting it was felt that he would simply just need to do his job when Emery opted to rotate and rest Watkins, but he showed this weekend that he can potentially step up when needed in pressure situations.
The touch on his chest to set himself and the finish were sublime, but what Emery will continue to analyse is Duran’s ability to adapt to, and be effective in, our way of playing. That will ultimately lead to more consistency and positive moments, and so if he can keep showcasing an understanding and chemistry with his teammates when he gets on the pitch, it could lead to a bigger role.
At Liverpool, Duran perhaps tried too much and was too eager to make a personal impression on the game. If he can produce moments like he did against Palace consistently and pair that with being an effective and influential figure in leading the line, that could be a game-changing development for our season in the bigger picture.
With such a hectic upcoming schedule, he’ll get more opportunities. Six games into the season though, it’s great to see him getting amongst the goals and showing that he can be a decisive option up top, and that will only lead to more faith and belief being shown in him by Emery to subsequently get more chances to impress.
UNSTOPPABLE. 🚀
Sensational from @JhonDuran991! 😍 pic.twitter.com/F6QH9FAsr9
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) September 16, 2023
