Jhon Duran big winner in Aston Villa Champions League loss after what Ollie Watkins did v Club Brugge
Unai Emery must start trusting Jhon Duran ahead of Ollie Watkins after another poor performance for Aston Villa against Club Brugge.
The Villans suffered their first defeat in the Champions League against the Belgian outfit on Wednesday 6 November after a moment of madness from Tyrone Mings.
The Englishman gave a penalty away in the second half, which allowed Hans Vanaken to open the scoring and take all three points.
This moment summed up the casual nature of Villa who failed to really create any clear-cut chances, with Watkins failing to get involved in the game for the most part.
Unai Emery must stop trusting Ollie Watkins over Jhon Duran at Aston Villa
The England international has had a positive season for the most part but is yet to hit a true purple patch of form as he has in previous years.
This struggle continued into the Champions League against Brugge as there was little to no silver linings to take from his showing.
Watkins took just 26 touches for the Villans which saw him make just 13 passes but did maintain an 81 per cent accuracy [FotMob].
This is as good as it got for the 28-year-old who registered just one shot across his 80 minutes on the field resulting in a 0 per cent conversion rate.
Going forward, the ex-Brentford man completed just one dribble with a 33 per cent success rate while also having just five touches in the Brugge penalty area.
Even on quieter days for the striker, he has always been positive when pressing from the front, but even this wasn’t true in Brugge on Wednesday (6 November).
Watkins didn’t attempt a single tackle while contributing with just one recovery while losing four duels.
With this performance, it could be time for Emery to drop the Englishman to the bench and unleash Duran from the start who has outscored his teammate so far this season.
In other Aston Villa news, the performance against Club Brugge has been labelled as an “absolute disgrace” as a pundit exploded after what he saw.
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