Unai Emery makes feelings clear about Jhon Duran and reveals Aston Villa plan

Aston Villa striker Jhon Duran is set to return to Bodymoor Heath with Ollie Watkins, Emi Martinez and Ezri Konsa next week

Jhon Duran will report back to Aston Villa for pre-season next week and Unai Emery has suggested that the striker still has a future at the club despite pushing for a move away this summer.

The 20-year-old was the subject of interest from Chelsea at the start of the window, but a move never materialised, before West Ham then came back in for him last month after seeing a loan to buy offer turned down back in January.

Villa rebuffed West Ham’s latest bid to sign Duran last month as they didn’t meet their valuation of the forward and instead, the Hammers moved on to other targets and are now set to sign Niclas Fullkrug from Borussia Dortmund. Colombia international Duran, who joined Villa in January 2023 from Chicago Fire, wanted to join West Ham for more game time and even appeared to make the Irons gesture by crossing his arms on an Instagram live stream, which Villa have been looking into and he will likely face disciplinary action for.

“He is coming next week after he played in the final for Colombia against Argentina and he has big potential,” Emery said after Villa’s final pre-season friendly in the USA on Saturday night. “I was always being close to him, helping his adaptation in Europe, in the Premier League.

“Now he is coming again next week and I will work again with him like last year, trying to get progressively better with him.

“Of course, his potential, he can exploit, but we will work in the future like the process we are doing with him being very demanding.”

Villa lost all three of their games in the USA, but were without some key players in Ollie Watkins, Ezri Konsa and Emi Martinez, who are all some of the first names on the team sheet.

“We are preparing to start our season in two weeks,” Emery said about the 1-0 defeat to Cub America. “Progressively the level is getting better and we play another two matches next week.

“We are thinking about how we can build a team and progressively get the performances collectively like we want. There are players joining us next week, four important players. Some players joined us last week and are progressively playing more. We are not in our best moment of pre-season but it’s normal.

“We lost three matches here and we don’t like it, but we are accepting it because we are in the pre-season and we are trying to get information out of the players. Today was a very good test in a great atmosphere. It was like playing away with all the Mexican fans here and they played very well.

“We were being competitive and during the season in the Premier League, Champions League, Carabao Cup and FA Cup we will face a lot of matches with a similar atmosphere.”