Unai Emery: No Aston Villa rift with Jhon Duran
Villa boss Unai Emery quashed talk of a rift with Jhon Duran with the striker poised to feature in the Europa Conference League at AZ Alkmaar on Thursday.
Rumour of a bust-up sparked when Colombia international was missing from Sunday’s 4-1 win over West Ham after deleting all reference to Villa from his social media accounts.
Emery explained his absence was down to injury sustained on international duty, though he did speak to the 19-year-old about the deleted posts.
The Villa boss said: “The only truth is he was not available to play on Sunday because he was injured.
“He came back from Colombia being injured. We have to support and to help him every day trying to focus him on only football each training session on how he can improve. How he can progress with us.
“I am not here to control the social media for each individual player and I asked him about it.
“He told me that it’s not really relevant and he’s thinking and focusing about playing with us and trying to increase his level. Firstly, trying to focus each training session preparing hard so he is ready, like tomorrow.”
When asked what reason Duran, a £15.4million January signing from Chicago Fire, had given for deleting his posts, Emery replied: “I spoke with him about everything and he told me it was not relevant and for me it is not relevant. They can do with their social media respecting everything, everything they want.”
After making changes for Villa's first two Group E games, Emery hinted at naming a strong line-up for tonight's potentially pivotal clash in Alkmaar.
Villa will be backed by 950 supporters in the AFAS Stadium, though several thousand more are believed to have travelled to the Netherlands.
Emery said: "My idea is to play with players really feeling we have to be strong, we have to be focused in 90 minutes.
"I am going to tell the players in the last meeting we are going to have that it is going to be difficult."
