The argument for Jhon Duran to start for Aston Villa, or at the very least to get more time on the pitch, is gathering credence.
While playing just an hour combined in four Premier League appearances this season, the 19-year-old Colombian has scored two goals, the most recent of them initiating the surge of energy that swept through Villa Park in Saturday’s comeback win over Crystal Palace. He also scored when starting the Europa Conference League qualifier second leg against Scotland’s Hibernian.
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From a stylistic standpoint, Duran is currently Villa’s greatest point of difference.
His skill set contrasts with those of his team-mates, and selecting him signals a small shift in coach Unai Emery’s way of playing — at this stage in his career, Duran is very much the brawn to the brains of Villa’s more experienced, technically adept players.
He is unfazed by most situations and his directness, good and bad, was encapsulated in that home game against Hibernian. Three times that night, all off the ball, the 6ft 1in (186cm) South American barged opposition defenders to the ground, conceding a couple of fouls in the process.
Duran, 19, is far from intimidated at Villa so far (Matt McNulty via Getty Images)When he arrived for an initial $18million (around £14.8m) from MLS side Chicago Fire in this year’s January window, Duran had a distinctive playing profile and was internally regarded at Villa as one of the most precocious young forwards in the world, despite Emery having limited knowledge of him.
Speaking about him since, the Spaniard said: “The adaptation is sometimes quick and sometimes slow, depending on the player and if they are younger or with more experience. Jhon Duran is 19 and he needs help, sometimes to push him, and trying to support everything he is doing, good and bad. I am trying to give him my confidence but also be demanding with him.”
In a team enriched with technical talent but occasionally inclined to all want the ball played to feet, especially when in a narrow 4-2-2-2 shape, that directness with and without the ball Duran offers adds a new facet to Villa. His thumping 87th-minute equaliser against Palace was at odds with the usual intricacies and finesse associated with Emery’s side.
UNSTOPPABLE. 🚀
Sensational from @JhonDuran991! 😍 pic.twitter.com/F6QH9FAsr9
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) September 16, 2023
Where Duran fits into this team, however, is pertinent.
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The importance of Ollie Watkins when it comes to Emery’s build-up and off-the-ball pressing should not be underestimated, even if there are concerns over his current lack of goals. Emery is a huge advocate for Watkins and believes he should be playing for England, and going into the final two years of his contract, there is a push to get a fresh deal done.
The paradox with Watkins is that while he remains the cornerstone of Villa’s attacking patterns, he receives the ball very infrequently, relatively speaking.
In the first five league games of this season, the 27-year-old has received and subsequently controlled just 66 passes. For context and direct comparison, summer signing Moussa Diaby, who has been starting alongside Watkins, has been successfully picked out by a team-mate on 107 occasions in those matches.
When the ball does arrive at Watkins, it is often through Villa teasing opposition forwards to press before accelerating play through the thirds.
His propensity to receive to feet and then combine with the team’s two No 10s was demonstrated in the move for Matty Cash’s Villa goal of the month for August in the 3-1 win at Burnley.
Nineteen passes led up to the finish and could be divided into two phases — the first and second occasions Watkins receives from either centre-back.
The first was from Pau Torres:
The second from Diego Carlos:
With his age and experience, Watkins is more well-rounded a player than Duran, and more accustomed to Villa’s in-possession nuances, including that coaxing build-up Emery wants — a tactic which means Villa have relatively little sustained possession in their attacking third, reducing the number of times Watkins receives the ball to feet.
Field tilt data, which only takes into account touches or passes in that final third, had Villa between 13th to 15th in the Premier League for possession in attacking areas before the visit of Palace — a match where they dominated the ball (66.7 per cent) more than in any Premier League fixture since the start of last season. Still, the field tilt data remains middling (10th in the league), with Villa leaning more on quickness and incision in the attacking third than on patience. This puts the onus on their No 9 to be penetrative.
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Encouragingly, despite not having scored in the Premier League this season (he got a hat-trick in the away game with Hibernian, and has two assists in the league), Watkins is shooting more than any team-mate who has started a match (3.06 shots per 90 minutes). So, in theory, his luck will soon turn.
In the summer, Emery outlined that other players needed to lighten the goalscoring burden on Watkins. The signing of Diaby has helped with that, but the manager still wants his team’s offensive support network to get into more threatening positions.
“It’s not just me, personally,” says John McGinn, Villa’s captain. “I think he (Emery) wants more goals from the wide players. We had a chat about it in pre-season and I promised him more goals. I’ve been looking at it with the staff.
“We do a lot of detailed analysis as to where I can get my goals and where I can get in the box. We’ve been working on it for weeks during pre-season and we work on the movement inside the box. For my goal against Everton (in the second game of this season), Ollie needs the credit for dragging the defenders away and allowing me to find the space and tap it in.”
Watkins is yet to score in the league this season (Lewis Storey via Getty Images)Emery’s request is bearing fruit.
Villa are third among all teams across Europe’s top five domestic leagues for expected goals (xG), behind only Barcelona and Manchester City, scoring 11 times from an xG figure of 10.9. Although caveated by the small sample size, Duran has scored his two goals off the bench from a personal xG number of 0.7.
“Duran will need to play matches, take minutes, experience and confidence,” Emery said. “It is coming quickly. But the most important thing is his quality, his capacity, his skill, his big potential. It’s his structure as a player and then trying to organise him in our structure.”
Emery and his coaching staff do not rule out playing Duran and Watkins together, though the preference is for two No 10s in possession. To accommodate the two strikers, Watkins would likely have to adjust to a deeper role.
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With Villa’s first Europa Conference League group game away to Poland’s Legia Warsaw tomorrow (Thursday), Emery will only have one training session — and that will probably be tapered to manage workload — before the trip to Chelsea three days later.
The inclination is to maintain consistency in selection, but, should Emery rotate or certain games require something different, Duran has shown he can at least become first in line after Watkins.
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(Top photo: Matthew Lewis via Getty Images)
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