Sky Sports pundit stunned by ‘unbelievable’ Emi Martinez as Dominic Solanke denied hat-trick in Aston Villa draw at Bournemouth
Ollie Watkins scored the late goal to rescue a point for Aston Villa in their 2-2 draw at Bournemouth, but his efforts would have been futile if not for Emi Martinez’s heroics at the other end.
The World Cup winner may have let goals from Antoine Semenyo and Dominic Solanke past him on 3 December but on both occasions he was left woefully exposed by his underperforming central defenders.
Solanke should certainly have had one more, and could easily have had a hat-trick, if the Argentine hadn’t kept him out at close range with two of the five saves he made on the day, with SofaScore stats crediting Martinez with having directly prevented 1.03 goals.
Just after the half hour and then again shortly after the hour mark he produced last-gasp blocks on the Cherries striker which stunned Sky Sports pundit and former Villans midfielder Lee Hendrie.
Reacting live on the world feed match commentary Hendrie said of the first stop (2.33pm): “What a save. Unbelievable save from Martinez… I’m not sure how [Villa survive]. Well I am, Martinez in goal, brilliant.”
Then for the second-half encore (3.29pm): “Ah it’s an unbelievable save from Martinez. Yet again thank the goalkeeper… Dom Solanke, again, should score. That should be pretty much game, set and match, but it isn’t.”
The two saves were the most crucial of his 53 touches on the south coast, and prevented what would have surely been a heavy defeat for Unai Emery’s side otherwise.
His passing was also solid with just five long balls of 14 not finding a teammate, which according to SofaScore were his only incompletions from 37 total passes (86%), yet that paled in comparison to his primary job with the crucial stops behind an ineffective back line.
Despite the two goals conceded Martinez kept his side in it long enough to give Watkins the opportunity to dig out a point with his excellent header at the death, and showed the oddly slack goalkeeping performance in the 2-0 defeat at Nottingham Forest on 5 November was only a blip.
In other Aston Villa news, one man is proving an unnecessary expense at over £150k-a-week for zero Premier League minutes.