Aston Villa told Unai Emery has made his feelings ‘crystal clear’ about Ollie Watkins & Jhon Duran

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Aston Villa are blessed to have a strong squad at their disposal.

That is proven by the two much-talked-about strikers Unai Emery can pick from – Ollie Watkins and Jhon Duran.

On the one hand, Watkins is the proven performer for Aston Villa and a key reason why they secured Champions League football last season.

And, on the other hand, you have the rising star in Duran, who recently signed a new contract, but is eager to start as many games as possible.

Ever since Duran started banging in the goals from the bench, including that long-range stunner against Everton, a debate has engaged as to who should start for the team.

With Villa losing four games on the bounce, then that talk will only grow, especially if they aren’t playing well going forward.

The Midlands side haven’t scored in back-to-back matches – Club Brugge in the Champions League and then Liverpool in the Premier League.

Watkins has started both matches and it was suggested that there needs to be a change, especially with formation, but that has been dismissed.

Unai Emery won’t start Jhon Duran ahead of Ollie Watkins at Aston Villa

Emery is pretty stubborn in his ways, and if he wants to go down a certain road, he will do it and won’t change it, regardless.

That seems to be the case with Watkins, even though Duran has scored a fair few goals from the bench, as well as in his last two starts for Aston Villa.

But Craig Burley made it clear that it’s a ‘whole different scenario’ starting matches than having to come off the bench to make an impact, as he told ESPN.

The Scotland international added that it’s ‘crystal clear’ that Emery feels Watkins is his guy to start because of his all-round game.

“Jhon Duran has been coming on and he has had this great goalscoring record about coming off the bench,” said Burley. “But that’s a whole different scenario to starting, with all the other facets of the game.

“The hold-up play. The link-up play. It’s all very well coming on when it’s a tight game, you are behind or you need a goal. Then just making something happen. It’s a different ball game playing 90 minutes. It’s not the same scenario.

“It’s crystal clear that, at the moment, Unai Emery feels that there’s much more to Ollie Watkins’s game, in terms of being all-round than Jhon Duran. Maybe that will change, but I don’t think so anytime soon. And he has been so good coming off the bench, as I said, and making a difference. That’s a great thing to have for a manager as well.”

Watkins v Duran stats

The stats make for interesting reading because, if you look at just the goals, then Duran is the man and is probably right to be annoyed at not starting more games.

In under 500 minutes across all competitions, the Colombian star has scored eight goals for Aston Villa compared to five for the England international in double the minutes.

But when you look closer at their game, such key passes per match, then only one person comes out on top, as posted by WhoScored