Unai Emery is determined to hold Ollie Watkins in Aston Villa this month while the club is preparing to sell Jhon Duran.
Villa's 4-2 victory over Celtic sent them to the last 16 of the Champions League, but the day was clouded by uncertainty about the future of the two attackers of the club.
Emery confirmed that Duran will probably move around £ 63 million to Al Nassr and will have a medical medical in London on Thursday.
But Villa was blinded by an Arsenal bid for Watkins hours before the kick -off. Although Emery accepts that every player has his price, he has no desire to sell Watkins.
“I don't want (sell),” said Emery. 'We will be very demanding for every deal. Ollie Watkins is our striker.
'There is a lot of speculation around our players, but the most important thing is how they respond to the field. They show us that they are mature and responsible.
'You know my opinion about Jhon Duran. He is a fantastic player with a great potential. I wanted him here, but what does he want? We are all different people with different goals and we have to respect that.
'If he leaves, it's because he prefers to go a different way in his career. It is good news for the club because someone pays good money for him, after we have developed him over the past two years.
'It's good news to have offers from other clubs. We want to keep our sports objectives by the players we have in the team.
“To stay at the level we are the most difficult challenge and maybe we should sell players to maintain this level, but we should always try to replace them with good players.”
There was a festive atmosphere in Villa Park when the 2-2 draw of Atalanta in Barcelona confirmed the site of Villa in the last 16, without going through the play-offs.
They will resume action in this competition in March and will be confronted with one of Borussia Dortmund, Atalanta, Sporting Lisbon or Club Brugge.
Emery added: 'I was a bit angry with the players during the break, but in the second half the reaction was fantastic.
'When we went 2-0, we still had 90 minutes to play and I couldn't understand why we were not strong in our mentality.
'If you lose respect for the opponent at times, the result can change. But I am very proud of how we played in the Champions League this year. '
“We are not contenders to win the competition, but we want to enjoy it, compete well and show our ability.”
Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers added: 'Scottish Football gets some stick in England, but you can clearly see that we have teams with the courage to play and we can still be competitive without the same means.
'The new format has been really good. Let us prepare for the next challenge. '
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