Jhon Durán has had a great start to the season after a difficult summer in which he agitated for a move to West Ham United.
Whilst Aston Villa were set against a sale, had the Hammers gone high enough with an offer then they would have secured the Colombian, given the way Villa were battling with their finances at the time.
Since then the 20-year-old has scored seven goals in just over 400 minutes.
That’s seen a string of old coaches of Durán’s speak to the media in Colombia. Aston Villa signed the forward from Chicago Fire, but prior to that he’d been with Envigado.
Alberto Suárez coached the youngster there and had a few difficulties with the player. Indeed, a number of coaches have come out in recent weeks to say that whilst they enjoyed coaching Durán as he was developing, it wasn’t always easy.
Aston Villa beat Bologna 2-0 on Tuesday evening, and Durán was one of the scorers. He was then taken off by Unai Emery, and threw a bit of a tantrum.
Colombia’s Noticias Caracol quote him as saying: “Here we are very interested in the football player and the human being interests us, when the conflictive ones appear. We have to support Jhon Jáder, as a person we do not dedicate much time to him in training, and if we normalise this (his tantrum after Emery’s change), they will lose him, he will be lost, in Europe they will not tolerate him. There are very close examples, like Balotelli, who due to his behaviour distanced himself from the elite of football.
“He has the talent, he is ahead in football, but not as a human being. Beyond everything, he is a sensitive human being, a nice person, but he is learning and more so now that he feels the media power multiplied by 1,000. I repeat, Jhon Jáder is not a bad person, he is a young man who is rebellious. He is 20-years-old and has lived for our football as if he were already 30. All this is complex for a Colombian.”
Alberto Suárez also explained he’s in contact with the Aston Villa player, trying to help him keep his feet on the ground and presumably calm down a little.
