Letting Jhon Duran go is a risk Aston Villa need to take ...Middle East

Jhon Duran was born in Zaragoza, a poverty-decimated town built on a gold mine, a corridor of rampant drug-trafficking among some of Colombia’s most striking rainforest. There he was the boy with the rare talent to escape who couldn’t do the one thing required – stay in school.

Now 21, he’s built on these contradictory yet connected extremes, poles which cannot exist without the other. Calm and chaos, patience and impatience, preternatural genius and a penchant for the idiotic. A collection of fragments and feelings which only makes a painting when you pull back the lens.

But you need to understand this whole image to comprehend Aston Villa selling Duran to Saudi Pro League wide boys Al-Nassr for £70m, despite Monchi, Unai Emery and Emiliano Martinez all saying he can become one of the world’s best strikers.

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A £57m bid from West Ham was rejected last week, because Villa know he’s worth more. More than 40 clubs have expressed interest, including Arsenal, Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain. So why sell at all? For a club of Villa’s ambition, why trade the future for a significant but not irrefusable figure?

The obvious answer here is the impracticality of owning two of the Premier League’s most elite goalscorers. As rejecting a £60m bid from Arsenal for Ollie Watkins highlights, Duran remains second choice.

Playing Duran alongside Watkins clearly doesn’t work, and he doesn’t want to sit quietly on the bench and wait his turn. That’s understandable, but now neither can live while the other survives.

This season Duran has scored every 87 minutes – three in seven in Europe, seven from just 626 Premier League minutes, two in two Carabao Cup matches. He’s outscored Watkins 12 goals to 11 in 1,200 fewer minutes and has scored at a higher rate in the top flight than any other player with at least one start.

His shooting statistics also top Watkins’, reflecting an ability to score from anywhere with instinctive invention and brutal power. A higher percentage of his league shots are on target – 48.4 to 42.1 – with more shots per 90 too – 4.37 to 3.21. Duran is also a more prolific finisher, scoring 0.47 goals for every shot on target to Watkins’ 0.33. These are extraordinary numbers.

Watkins is better with the ball at his feet and far stronger creatively, a more complete forward with fewer weaknesses but a lower ceiling for genius. Eight years ago, when Watkins was Duran’s age, he was playing for Exeter City in League Two. Careers are never linear nor hugely comparable, but this at least outlines the raw materials Duran is working with.

But the question is whether Villa can build a future around him. No one appears to quite trust his stability or maturity, however much they marvel at his training exploits. Duran has spoken about his love/hate relationship with Emery, the frustration and fascination, but he has started just three Premier League games and two in the Champions League all season.

There’s talk he will only realise his potential if he can be tamed, but that would require dulling what makes him brilliant. He needs understanding, coaxing and accepting, balanced help.

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He was charged with improper conduct by the FA after being sent off for stamping on Fabian Schar against Newcastle United last month. Last summer, chasing a move to West Ham, he crossed his arms in the club’s “Irons” symbol, not his first or last social media mishap.

“The head goes to other places,” he told Sky Sports last year. Restless to a fault, even if Villa offer Duran the keys to the city, could they trust he won’t agitate for a move regardless?

Somewhere within all this is quite how dangerous for Duran’s career going to Saudi Arabia might be. Perhaps the worst possible step for someone of his psychological profile would be an environment with more money and less pressure, more freedom and lower standards. It’s hard to imagine him being drawn into Cristiano Ronaldo’s orbit, shunning desserts and becoming a high-performance influencer.

Relaxation will lead to boredom, and boredom to mischief. He could sign away the chance for greatness for one big deal, which would be wretched for everyone involved. European football is improved and sustained by incomparable alchemists like Duran and Cole Palmer thriving and freewheeling. You can only really stress test and appreciate genius at the vanguard of its field.

There are still plenty of futures in which Duran becomes one of few truly great strikers, such is his unique, instinctive skillset. If Emery sanctions his departure, he could become the man who sold the world, albeit for the world’s current market value.

But that appears to be a risk he needs to take, because Duran wants the world and he wants it now. The question is whether the world wants all of him, every extreme and contradiction, the beautiful and the damned, or just the sanitised highlights, 30-yard screamers and thumping volleys. However much people will try, you can’t have one without the other.

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