Aston Villa are off to a great start in the 2024/25 Premier League season, as their 3-1 win over Wolves this past weekend was their third straight victory in league competition, with backup striker Jhon Duran adding his fourth goal in five appearances off the bench.
Between Duran and attacking midfielder Morgan Rogers, Aston Villa have two of the biggest breakout stars in the Premier League thus far and look like a great bet to finish in the top four again.
Last season, Aston Villa already had one of the top breakout superstars in the Premier League, as Ollie Watkins was a double-digit goal-scorer and assist provider as a legitimate Premier League Player of the Season candidate.
So now that Duran is finishing off chances like he’s the second coming of Ronaldo Nazario, Aston Villa have two legitimate top strikers on their hands, as Watkins remains a major all-around threat with three goals and an assist through five starts.
The Aston Villa two-headed monster is safe, and what’s especially interesting about the Duran breakout alongside Watkins is the fact that Villa 1) Almost sold Duran to West Ham this summer and 2) Almost signed Jonathan David as his replacement.
Via Total Villa, trusted transfer insider Fabrizio Romano spoke about Villa’s previous interest in David, “Jonathan David was one of the players most enquired about this summer. It looked like Aston Villa would go after him with everything they had, but the deal never came off because they could not find an agreement with either the player or the club.”
Aston Villa will be more than happy that they didn’t end up securing a transfer for David, who would have cost upwards of 50 million euros, based on what Lille asking for.
But Unai Emery was smart enough not to push to spend big on David and to instead dig his heels in to make sure Duran didn’t leave for a high price, if he was ever interested in selling Duran at all.
As David awaits a transfer in 2025, Aston Villa clearly don’t even need to circle back to the talented Canadian, because, in Duran and Watkins, they have two arguably better strikers anyway.
The managing editor of The Trivela Effect, Kevin has 15 years of experience in digital media. He covered Real Madrid from 2019-2022 for The Real Champs as a site manager. His work has been featured in ESPN, Bleacher Report, Yahoo! Sports, NBC Sports, and other major outlets. You can contact him at the site’s official Twitter handle @TrivelaEffect or via the site’s official email thetrivelaeffect@gmail.com.