View: Aston Villa must address dip in form of Emiliano Martinez
Aston Villa have had a poor start to their Premier League season and it hasn’t gone under the radar that several players have been underperforming.
Defeats to Bournemouth, Crystal Palace, West Ham and Arsenal mean the team has just four point from their first six games and will go into the first international break of the season above the relegation zone only on goals scored.
But with only three teams having a worse defensive record than their ten goals conceded so far, the form of goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez is sure to be of concern.
The Argentine shot-stopper arrived from Arsenal and was immediately seen as one of the very best signings in recent memory in the Premier League, taking the team up a level or two and making saves he had no right to make.
He brought a mentality of winning at all costs to the squad and earned points for the team single handedly on occasion, cementing himself as the first-choice goalkeeper at the club under Dean Smith and Steven Gerrard.
So much so, that he was handed a brand new contract until 2027 at the start of the year with a big pay-rise.
But with the arrival of Gerrard just months prior to that, his form has dropped off a cliff and now there are concerns about if his best performances have been and gone.
It’s easy to forget that he has been around for a while, having spent the best part of a decade at The Emirates with the Gunners before he eventually broke into the team and then left the club.
So despite his low amount of game time over the course of his career, he is in his thirties now and has played an awful lot over the last three years.
For Arsenal, Aston Villa and Argentina he has played 122 times since the start of the 2019/20 season and it could just be that he needs a break from regular football for a small while to reset and go again.
There is no question that he is the best goalkeeper at the club right now and arguably the best they can have at this moment in time, even if they were to dip into the transfer market in January.
But recent errors, like the one that gave Arsenal a late winner, are uncharacteristic and must be addressed before they’re allowed to become the norm or set in as a potential part of his game.
If they can get Martinez back to his best then there is no doubt that Villa’s form and results will improve too and that has to be the priority for the next run of fixtures.
In other Aston Villa news, Douglas Luiz wants to leave on a free for another Premier League team according to a report