Aston Villa boss Unai Emery gave a response after being asked about transfer speculation linking Jhon Duran with an exit this month.
The 20-year-old arrived from Chicago Fire in January last year, and he has since gone on to make 34 appearances for the club, scoring four goals and providing one assist.
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As per the Daily Mail though earlier this week, Villa are said to be willing to listen to offers for the Colombian international amid interest from AC Milan, and so it’s unclear at this stage if he will remain a Villa player for much longer, with an initial loan move being touted.
Ultimately, if Duran were to leave this month though, a replacement would absolutely be needed to ensure we have cover behind Ollie Watkins, and so it will be interesting to see if there is a reshuffle in that department.
When asked about Duran following our 1-0 win over Middlesbrough in the FA Cup on Saturday night, Emery was dismissive but ambiguous in his response, as it wasn’t clear what the thinking is within the club on what’s next for the striker.
“I am going to speak about the players that are here now and I don’t want to change nothing,” he said, as per the Athletic’s Jacob Tanswell.
That could be interpreted as Emery saying that he ultimately doesn’t wish to disrupt his squad this month, and wants to keep it in place to continue the fine work done in the first half of the campaign, thus ruling out a potential Duran departure.
Conversely, some have interpreted it as a double negative and believe he suggested that something may well need to change, while it could just be his way of dismissing the entire topic and not wanting to discuss his players without anything tangible to add.
Time will of course reveal more as we’ll see if there are any developments on the transfer front this week, specifically in relation to Duran. However, as noted above, if he were to leave, Villa will surely want to identify and secure the services of a replacement before that happens to ensure we’re not leaving ourselves light up top and lacking firepower for the rest of the season.
