Stan Collymore is wrong, Emiliano Martinez would be an upgrade for top teams and Aston Villa must keep him
Ever since Emiliano Martinez won the World Cup with Argentina, there have been question marks about his long-term future at Aston Villa.
The shot-stopper signed a new long-term deal not that long ago, but question marks persist about whether he will still be at the club with so many top sides in Europe potentially looking at improving their own goalkeeper situation.
Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham are the most recent to be linked with a move for him ahead of the summer window and ex-Villa striker Stan Collymore believes he should be allowed to go if he doesn’t want to be at Villa Park.
“He’s being linked with Tottenham, Chelsea and Manchester United,” Collymore said in his Caught Offside column (12 May).
“While I am sure he’d provide the likes of Kepa, Edouard Mendy and David De Gea with competition, I’m not sure he’d be a major upgrade for either.
“However, with Hugo Lloris nowhere near the player he once was and looking likely to leave at the end of the season, a move to Tottenham for Martinez is one that could happen.
“But my first point stands – if he doesn’t want to play for Villa anymore then he can go.”
But how true is that?
According to the Premier League official website, not very.
Martinez has kept 11 clean sheets this season, more than Kepa and Lloris and four fewer than De Gea which is quite impressive considering the position Aston Villa found themselves in earlier this season.
He’s also conceded fewer goals than De Gea and Lloris, and while Kepa has conceded fewer than the Argentine he has also played nine games fewer this season.
Martinez’s 72% save success percentage is only behind Kepa of the four, while he’s also proven himself to be a worthy penalty saver too. He tends to punch less and claim more, with a huge 51 high claims more than all three of the other goalkeepers combined (49).
He’s also proven he is more than adept at playing at the highest level as a sweeper keeper with 27 sweeps, compared to 16 from Kepa, 11 from De Gea and 7 from Lloris.
Basically, the stats show that Martinez is better than all three and quite considerably if you factor in the calibre of the defences in front of them.
Losing him would be a catastrophic blow to the squad as they look to push on next season under Unai Emery, and those clubs would be right to pursue him for the summer to upgrade their own squad.
But if we want to close the gap and get better, we must keep him.
In other Aston Villa news, this £40m striker would be an absolute steal and outshines Ollie Watkins statistically.