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Unai Emery hopes Jhon Duran will stay at Aston Villa after the striker climbed off the bench to sink West Ham, the club he wanted to join this summer.
Colombian striker Duran was so close to moving to east London that he even had to be reprimanded by Villa after doing a ‘crossed Hammers’ gesture with his arms on social media.
However, new Hammers boss Julen Lopetegui could not agree a deal and opted to sign Germany forward Niclas Fullkrug.
That decision came back to bite him as Duran struck with 11 minutes left to deal the Spaniard a 2-1 defeat in his opening Premier League match in charge.
Emery, who replaced a tiring Ollie Watkins with Duran on the hour, said: “We believe in him and his potential. We are open to working with him like he did today, helping the team, being available when we need him and today he was fantastic.
“With Watkins not feeling 100 per cent we prepared the plan for today to use both players over 90 minutes. Always I am very committed with him to get the best out of him as a player and even as a person. Some mistakes we have to accept and of course not repeat it. At the beginning I wanted him here and nothing changed after the match today.
“We were before, with every player, open in case a big offer comes in, and one of those players is him. But we know his potential and we know if he is leaving the offer is good for the club. But I don’t want him to leave.”
Much has been made of West Ham’s spending this summer – they were among the busiest clubs in Europe with eight new signings – but it was a Villa new boy, Amadou Onana, who scored with almost his first touch, heading home from a corner after only four minutes.
Lucas Paqueta hauled the hosts level with a coolly-taken penalty before half-time.
But it was Duran who had the final word, pouncing from eight yards to tuck away Jacob Ramsey’s pull-back and deal Lopetegui a defeat in his first game in charge.
“I’m not going to talk about individual players of the opponent,” said Lopetegui of Duran. “Each player helps his team always and he is not our player.
“For sure we are unhappy because we lost at home against a very big team Aston Villa, a Champions League team. When you lose you have to be always sad, I feel it myself we had expectation to give our fans one happy day. It was not.
“We tried and we have to keep the good things we did and improve other things, that’s for sure.”
