West Ham are of the opinion that Aston Villa’s £40 million price tag for Jhon Duran as excessively high by at least £10 million.
The Hammers, who started pursuing Duran last month, are keen on securing the 20-year-old who is eager for more first-team play away from Villa Park.
Aston Villa’s manager, Unai Emery, is open to Duran moving on as the player, currently a second choice behind Ollie Watkins, seeks more game time. However, Villa, fresh off qualifying for the Champions League, values him at about £40 million.
West Ham believes this valuation does not offer good value for money, especially when players like Lille’s Jonathan David and Arsenal’s Eddie Nketiah, who have similar profiles, although the Columbian forward remains the primary target.
With the PSR deadline of June 30 passed, Villa are unflustered and feel no urgency to finalise a quick sale for Duran. However, they need to recoup funds as they plan to spend £50 million on Everton midfielder Amadou Onana. Sales might still occur later in this transfer window.
Whether West Ham are willing to wait until later in the window remains to be seen but it would be unlikely.
We don’t need potential, we need an established striker who knows how to hit the net. Maybe worth a punt as one for the future given his age, but not for anywhere near 40m
During the recent Copa America, Duran was not part of Colombia’s starting eleven. Plus he did not get any minutes during the final game they lost against Argentina. Great potential, yes. But is he already the finished product?
He’s worth every penny of the £40m. If he’s given game time he’ll score goals, amazing goals. And no doubt at all, he’ll be worth double the £40m outlay. I hope we keep him.
As a Villa ST holder I can say that Dhurán is a top top prospect and just needs to be let loose. His attitude is a bit much but maybe he just knows he needs to play. If he went to Dortmund instead of us, I reckon he’d be one of the best in Europe already.
Surely if he is that good he’d be ousting Watkins as first choice? For a 2nd string player costing 18 million Villa should be biting the hand off anybody will to go near 30 million.
£22m profit for Villa at £40m price tag???!
I know they need funds due to signings they want to make, but paying that kind of uplift for a player unproven is just crazy.
Potential yes, but potentially us getting fleeced, NO!!
Villa paid £18M including add ons but you can’t judge by that as contract length and adaptation to the premier league are factors that increase that.
He was hardly likely to break through behind Watkins so you can’t really judge by that either.
He did make 35 appearances mainly as sub so buying him now is not the risk that Villa took when they bought him. He may not have broken through which was unlikely but he wasn’t a flop either.
While the PSR deadline might be passed the next one isn’t and the books do need to be balanced just not yet a while.
He’s obviously worth more than what Villa paid, appreciably more, the question is how much more.