Aston Villa forward Jhon Duran has resumed training with the group as he closes in on a comeback from a reported injury setback.
The 19-year-old joined us in January and went on to make 12 appearances last season, although he missed our final game of the campaign and didn’t feature in pre-season over the summer.
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While Duran is undoubtedly still developing and adapting on and off the pitch, he does provide Unai Emery with an important and different dynamic in the final third given his height, physicality and pace on and off the ball.
Particularly with speculation over Cameron Archer’s future at Villa, competition and depth is needed with Ollie Watkins firmly established in his position as first choice, and so getting Duran back is important regardless of his limited impact thus far.
As per Villa’s latest images from training this week ahead of facing Everton on Sunday, Duran can be seen working with the rest of the group, and so it’s an important step forward for him as he edges closer to featuring again.
Speaking ahead of our defeat to Newcastle Utd last week, Emery did outline the intended comeback plan for the Colombian international, and it appears as though he is very much on schedule.
“Jhon Durán is coming back next week,” he told the media in his pre-match press conference last Thursday. “Hopefully we can add him in two or three weeks working consistently with us and having the opportunity to play.”
While it’s an important boost to have Duran back training as the next step towards being available again, it sounds as though he still has work to do to get back up to speed and in condition to get minutes if needed in our upcoming fixtures.
With three Premier League fixtures and our two-legged Europa Conference League play-off round tie to come before the international break next month, we need to get numbers back across the squad as we look to bounce back from a disappointing start.
Alex Moreno is also seemingly making good progress and is expected to return later this month or perhaps early September, but Duran is stepping up his workload and will hopefully be able to feature sooner rather than later, with the likes of Jacob Ramsey, Leander Dendoncker, Tim Iroegbunam and Bertrand Traore still to follow.
Jhon Durán in latest training images ✅
🗣 Unai Emery last week: "Jhon Durán is coming back next week. Hopefully we can add him in two or three weeks working consistently with us and having the opportunity to play.”#avfc #UTV pic.twitter.com/q9NtSCkja4
— Talk Villa (@thetalkvilla) August 17, 2023
