20 year old youngster looking positive for Villa.
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00:00 The set-piece goals are becoming more of an issue, what's the latest?
00:25 I was there at the game, West Ham won one draw and I was obviously there at the European
00:29 Conference League win over Ajax as well, what a night that was. John Duran, I'll start with,
00:34 on that European night, started to break through a bit for Villa because Ollie Watkins went
00:39 down of an injury, scored the opening goal of the game but then had to come off. A lot
00:43 of concern from Villa fans and so the topic immediately goes to, is John Duran the man
00:48 or are we going to try and bring in Morgan Rodgers up top? You're always going to look
00:51 at replacements in that instance. Thankfully Watkins was OK but what he did allow for was
00:56 Duran to have 60 minutes on the field. He scored a goal, created so many problems for
01:01 the Ajax defenders and just his physicality, his pacing behind was really impressive. You
01:07 can tell he's still very raw, still very young, I believe only 20 or 21 years of age so he's
01:12 going to be like that but his finish was unbelievable from the edge of the box, striking it in off
01:17 the crossbar, hit the crossbar twice, the underside of it, before crossing the line.
01:22 Very impressive from him. Did miss some big chances so that's something for him to work
01:26 on but I think if Unai Emery works for him a bit more and can mature him as a player
01:31 then there's definitely a lot in there. The set-piece problem, well Villa have got the
01:36 fourth most goals conceded in the Premier League from set-pieces this season, excluding
01:42 penalties so it's pretty much a big problem area. There was a goal conceded at West Ham
01:48 from a set-piece but then disallowed, Bowen whipping in a corner and Antonio bundling
01:54 it in and also it wasn't a set-piece but from a wide position was Antonio's goal itself.
01:59 It's a real problem area for Villa, those crosses into the area, they just can't seem
02:02 to deal with them.
02:03 And how do you sort of combat that because they've had defence changes quite a lot this
02:09 season. Is it a case that it's slowly got worse throughout the season or can it be put
02:16 right in the build-up to the back end of this season?
02:19 Well it's been a problem for quite a long time, I'm not quite sure what it is. Maybe
02:24 a lack of height and when Buba Kakamara is not there certainly doesn't help as well.
02:28 He had a stretch out at the beginning of the season and of course now as well so that's
02:31 not ideal. Maybe as well with those, not on a set-piece aspect but just from crosses,
02:38 normally being a right centre-back you can't drift across to the left naturally sometimes
02:42 and that's what left the space open for Michael Antonio to score that goal at the London Stadium.
02:49 That's maybe an issue, having two left-footed centre-backs, they can sometimes drift across.