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Troy Deeney says Arsenal ‘need’ a striker like Jhon Duran to achieve their ambitions, with the club reportedly lining up a move for the Aston Villa star in the January transfer window.
Duran, 20, has picked up where he left off after finishing strongly last season, racking up seven goals in his opening 12 appearances for Villa.
But since the 2024/25 campaign began, Duran has made just two starts in all competitions and the Colombian was visibly furious to be substituted after doubling Villa’s lead against Bologna on Tuesday night.
Forced to play second fiddle to Ollie Watkins throughout his time at Villa, Duran will no doubt be itching for another opportunity from the start when Unai Emery’s side return to Premier League action at home to Bournemouth this weekend.
In the summer, Chelsea and West Ham were both credited with a strong interest in Duran, but the young attacker went on to sign a new contract at Villa Park, tying him to the club until 2030.
The latest reports suggest Arsenal have approached Villa over a proposed move for Duran this winter and Deeney believes the forward would be a perfect fit for the Gunners.
‘You see with Ollie Watkins now that his game has risen. At the start of the season, Ollie was pretty poor, missed a lot of chances,’ the ex-Watford captain said on CBS Sports.
‘But they’ve got this guy [Duran] in the background, “Hold on, who is this kid? He shouldn’t be doing that!”, and now he keeps going, he keeps going.
‘He’s just got a massive contract… whether that’s to keep him or whether that’s to sell him, that’s for different people to talk about.
‘But for me, if I’m Chelsea or Arsenal, that’s the type of striker I need.’
Deeney has been impressed by Duran’s recent form but says the pressure of being the guaranteed starter for a big cub is a ‘completely different’ proposition.
He added: ‘He’s young, arrogant, ignorant and he can get away with it. Every time he scores he says, “What more do you want me to do?”, but it’s about having good pros around him to get hold of him and say, “Listen, young man…”.
‘I’ve been there, I’ve made more mistakes than most people. You make a lot of mistakes, you think you’re the man, you think you know it all.
‘But once you get to 22, 23, 24, people just go, “Oh, we’ve figured him out now”, and that’s what he has to understand now.
‘At the moment, if he doesn’t score, it doesn’t matter because Ollie Watkins does.
‘But if he wants to fill the big-boy shoes, be the No.9 for whatever team he plays for, there is an expectation that you have to score 20-odd goals every single season and every single game. That’s completely different.’
Villa are acutely aware of the growing interest in Duran from around Europe, with La Liga giants Barcelona also said to weighing up a January transfer bid.
In response, the club have slapped a £75million price tag on the Colombian and will not be entertaining offers of anything below that figure.
Villa sporting director Monchi recently suggested as many as 40 teams signaled their interest in Duran across the summer.
‘We have two very strong strikers, him and Watkins,’ he told Sky Italia.
‘Duran wanted to play more minutes, and we needed to sell a player due to FFP, but without an important offer we were convinced he would stay here.
‘Emery has a lot of faith in him: some offers have arrived, there were meetings, but the amount we asked for did not arrive.’
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