Having failed to stop thinking about the wonder that is Jhon Duran since his Goliath-slaying winner on Wednesday we’ve come up with a feature to legitimise further worship of our new favourite Premier League player.
Aston Villa retaining him is one of the five best decisions made by top flight clubs this summer.
The worst decisions features Erik ten Hag.
Aston Villa keeping Jhon Duran
Aston Villa’s director of football operations Damian Vidagany claimed last month that “no fewer than 40 clubs wanted Duran” over the summer but fellow club chief Monchi revealed that Unai Emery wanted to retain the Colombian striker as he was “100 per cent convinced that he can become one of the best strikers in the world in the next 12 months”.
Cue raised eyebrows and chortles ahead of a run at the start of this season of six goals at a rate of one every 50 minutes for Duran to turn sceptics into believers. Aston Villa would currently be 11th in the Premier League rather than fifth without those goals and the fans would have enjoyed a good night rather than a euphoric one on Wednesday.
The problem for poor Emery is that he’s got two strikers, both of whom would probably get into any other team in the Premier League other than Manchester City. But Monchi’s logic for refusing offers for the 20-year-old this summer is hard to argue with: “If you have two big strikers it is better than only one.”
MORE ON SUPER JHON DURAN ON F365
👉 Jhon Duran and Unai Emery stun Bayern to put Aston Villa on euphoric path to Champions League norm
👉 How close every Premier League team came to signing Jhon Duran: rejected bids, £10m quotes, blocked by Antony
👉 ‘Up the f***ing Villa and ¡Vamos Colombia!’ as Champions League comes alive
Ryan Gravenberch over a Martin Zubimendi alternative
The new Liverpool recruitment brains trust of Michael Edwards and Richard Hughes were rather embarrassed over the summer by Martin Zubimendi’s flip-flopping over his seemingly sealed transfer to Liverpool and faced further criticism from some quarters over their supposed inability to secure an alternative.
There were questions over why they left it so late to make the move and put all their eggs in one basket. Even reports at the time that they chose not to source a different solution as they didn’t want to make a panic purchase of an unsuitable player – which sounds perfectly sensible – were met with mirth from rival fans and frustration from their own supporters, who had it drilled into their minds that having missed out on various No.6s the previous summer, they couldn’t cope without a new one this season.
But, in what is very clearly an alien occurrence for many top clubs, the directors clearly sat down with Arne Slot and they all came to the conclusion that they would rather work with what they’ve got for now and wait for the right player to become available.
And that willingness to be patient has paid off in spades, with the form of Ryan Gravenberch in that role such that they may well now be considering which other areas of the squad could be boosted by the £50m they would have spent on Zubimendi.
Chelsea hiring Enzo Maresca
We reserve the right to U-turn multiple times on this before the end of the season, but as of now we’ve got to hold our hands up: we were wrong about Enzo Maresca.
It was hard to fathom the decision to sack Mauricio Pochettino after what we thought was a very decent end to the season at Chelsea, and hire a manager whose only experience as a senior coach consisted of 14 games with Parma before being sacked and a season in the Championship with Leicester, with the absolute key to his appointment being his association with Pep Guardiola.
But he’s making a job that was deemed near-impossible when he arrived look like an absolute pleasure.
Chelsea bought a ludicrous number of players in the summer once again and he was criticised for creating the so-called ‘bomb squad’. The club left him with little option but to be brutal though, and when asked about his “mess” of forwards he calmly and eruditely explained that he has two players for each of the front four positions.
There’s now a clear starting XI at Chelsea for the first time since Thomas Tuchel left the club, they’ve scored more goals than anyone else in the Premier League (15) and in a very short period of time Maresca has managed to implement a clear identifiable style of football while also showing his ability to modify that style according to the opponents they’re playing.
We’ve all laughed at Chelsea for a while now, but with this group of very talented young players being moulded by a manager who clearly knows what he’s doing, they may just be onto something special.
Scott McTominay leaving Manchester United
Anyone with an even slightly football-tilted social media algorithm will have seen Scott McTominay’s performance for Napoli against Juventus, presumably clipped up with the sole purpose of boiling Red Devil p*ss that they sold an academy graduate who – unbeknownst to them – can do things with a football akin to a prime Kaka, to the extent that an Italian commentator claimed the Scot made ‘the Juventus players look like children’.
His first goal for the club came in the next game against Palermo and his first assist in the 2-0 win over Monza on Sunday.
Antonio Conte’s Napoli currently sit top of Serie A with four wins and a draw in their last five games after the opening day defeat to Hellas Verona. Manchester United are 13th, with their only victories coming over Fulham, Southampton and Barnsley. Good call, Scott.
READ MORE: Ten Premier League summer departees thriving in Europe this season
Liverpool hiring Arne Slot
There are reasons for caution at Liverpool despite Arne Slot’s record-breaking start to the season but that shouldn’t take anything away from eight wins in nine games.
Jurgen Klopp’s bombshell announcement in January left Liverpool with The Impossible Job of sourcing his replacement, and the way in which their search for a new boss was covered by the media, with Ruben Amorim and Xabi Alonso tipped as their top candidates, it felt as though they rather settled for Slot rather than set out to have him as the coach to guide them through what could have been some choppy post-Klopp waters.
We can’t know for sure if Slot was at or even near the top of their shortlist, but what we do know is that an alternative would have been hard-pushed to have done a better job thus far at easing what would have been significant concerns that the club was set for a Manchester United or Arsenal-like malaise having lost a legendary manager.
