Matt Maher on new Jhon Duran deal
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00:00I'm Nathan Judah. I'm delighted to be joined by Aston Villa reporter. It is Mr. Matt Mayer.
00:05Matt, yesterday, I guess a slightly disappointing result, a home nil-nil draw to Manchester
00:10United, but at the same time kind of shows how far they've come. But Monday brings some
00:15excellent news and John Duran signed a big contract extension to keep him at Villa Park.
00:21Yeah, through 2030, I mean, it's a six-year deal, which, you know, I think I should really
00:27have researched this, shouldn't I? But I can't think of another Villa player that's been given
00:30six years. I mean, he's only 20 years old. This is the mad thing about Duran, you keep forgetting
00:35how young this kid actually is. But, I mean, it just kind of, it doesn't complete the story,
00:43because obviously it's got, you know, who knows what he's going to do next. But, you know,
00:49what a turnaround in the space of, what, a couple of months. I mean, we just said,
00:53what, 7th of October, and then you just said on the 7th of August that John Duran would be
00:57signing a six-year deal at Villa, having scored six goals, having made himself such, you know,
01:02kind of one of the stars of the early Premier League season, despite having not started a game
01:07in the Premier League yet. I mean, you'd never had it, would you? I mean, it looked all set
01:11in the summer that he was probably going to leave. You know, West Ham were very keen. I think they
01:16were getting quite close to a deal that Villa would have accepted. But they didn't get close
01:22enough. And I think Uno Emery, despite the issues that perhaps him and John Duran have had in the
01:28past, last season, with Duran being upset with his lack of playing time, and perhaps Duran,
01:34as we know, a bit of an interesting character, to say the least, slightly eccentric,
01:39still a very young man. I think that's kind of, you know, that point probably can't be hammered
01:44home enough, really. Quite easy to forget how young a lot of these players are, isn't it,
01:48sometimes, when you're old kids like us, you know. But you forget the kind of responsibility
01:54they have and the focus on them. But I think the Villagers believe that they've got potentially
02:00one of the world's best strikers of the future, you know, a potential £100 million player. So,
02:08having, you know, got him back onside, contract talks were kind of the next obvious move. And I
02:15think they were talked about in the summer. And obviously, here we are with a deal agreed.
02:21Yeah, a huge turnaround and, you know, obviously, posing, I guess, with the iron sign or whatever
02:26at the start of the season. And it is an incredible turnaround. And the goals he's scored coming off
02:30the bench, as you say, Matt, not only have they been as great as a goal scorer's afford to be
02:35scoring goals, but maybe for 2-0 or 3-0 up, you know, it's insignificant. But a lot of these goals
02:39have been massive goals in games, haven't they? Four match winners, you know, which is mad,
02:44really, isn't it? You know, when you think of, yeah, six goals, four of the match winners,
02:51five of them off the bench, he's had an incredible year already. He's already broken a Premier League
02:57record for scoring match winners off the bench, which, you know, is, yeah, it's been, you know,
03:04it's been remarkable. And it's worked so well, you know, it's kind of been a masterclass in
03:08management by Unai Emery because Ollie Watkins has scored four goals in the last,
03:15well he hasn't scored in the last two, but he had four in three heading into the Bayern Munich game
03:20after a difficult start to the season, bearing his exploits with England. And, you know,
03:26he's kept both players on side. Durant has been guaranteed more minutes off the bench,
03:29he's featured much more prominently off the bench. I know he's, you know, still not started
03:33many games, but he's had much more time off the bench. But Watkins, who, you know,
03:38needs to feel like he's the main man, still feels like he's the main man, you know,
03:41and he's starting every game. So it's been, you know, Emery's been very clever the way he's kind
03:46of given them both kind of almost these specific roles and, you know, got the best out of both of
03:53them so far. The question now is, can he find a way for them to play together?
03:59That's the question I was going to say. He's been fantastic and when he's scoring goals and
04:03things are going great, perfect, but there will come a time, especially with Ollie Watkins,
04:08hopefully for a long time to come as well, where John Durant will want to start games. Now,
04:12can he get away with this season of maybe starting a sprinkling of Premier League games together with
04:16probably the majority of Cup games and maybe some Champions League starts if and when they've
04:21qualified from the group stages? Or will that not be enough for a 20-year-old who's obviously very,
04:25very ambitious? Well, I think the fact he's signed the deal suggests that he's quite happy
04:31now. The summer and everything that could have happened, he's over that now for the time being,
04:41but it is a good question. How long is he going to be happy as a substitute? I think he's going
04:46to start more and more, but that's Emery's kind of challenge now is to find a way for them to play
04:52together. Having said that, the amount of injuries Villa are getting, there will be opportunities
04:57because they've had five players go down with hamstring injuries already, and it's the start
05:02of October. So, there will be opportunities. I think it's, yeah, what are the next steps?
05:09I mean, David Vidigani, the club's director of football operations, put on Twitter,
05:16today's the time to stay humble. I think that's kind of the message to Durant really,
05:22he's got to, this is just the start, he's got to keep his feet on the ground.
05:26Matt, thank you very much. That's John Durant, a huge new six-year contract. For Matt, make sure,
05:32and all the Aston Villa news, you are on ExpressingStyle.com. We'll see you very, very soon.
05:37Cheers, Matt.