PGMOL agreement detailed after Emi Martinez incident in Aston Villa win v Bournemouth
Emi Martinez was booked for the fifth time this season as Aston Villa beat Bournemouth 1-0 at the Vitality Stadium on Saturday.
The 32-year-old goalkeeper was shown a yellow card by referee Stuart Attwell in first-half stoppage time when he raced out of his goal to discuss Adam Smith’s strong challenge on Jacob Ramsey.
Martinez is now the third-most-booked goalkeeper in the Premier League this season, but the whole incident could have been avoided.
Aston Villa had power to avoid Martinez yellow card
Keith Hackett has revealed that the Premier League and PGMOL have an agreement this season that sees captains able to speak to referees about various incidents in the game.
Martinez was wearing the captain’s armband when Aston Villa won on the south coast on Saturday evening, meaning that he was within his rights to discuss Smith’s challenge on Ramsey.
However, the nature of him coming out of his goal to remonstrate with Attwell clearly came across as dissent to the experienced referee, who ended up booking the Argentina World Cup winner.
Former PGMOL general manager Hackett believes that to avoid this happening again, Aston Villa should appoint an outfield player, much like a vice-captain, to speak to the referee in-game.
| Player | Yellow cards |
| Jordan Pickford (Everton) | 7 |
| Bart Verbruggen (Brighton) | 6 |
| Emi Martinez (Aston Villa) & Robert Sanchez (Chelsea) | 5 |
“Emiliano Martinez is shown the yellow card after racing out of his area to discuss with the referee a reckless challenge committed by a Bournemouth player. This is an interesting sanction given that Martinez is the captain,” Hackett told Villa News.
“The Premier League and PGMOL have an arrangement that one hour before kick off, both managers and the team captain enter the referee’s dressing room.
“This is to exchange team sheets and to facilitate a line of communication between the Referee and the captain.
“I have said in the past that appointing the team captain in the goalkeeper position makes it rather difficult to have a mid-field conversation.
“It would help if Villa appointed an outfield player to be able to facilitate clarification in an incident.
“When one of his players is losing some self-discipline, that word with the captain requesting him to have a word and informing him that you want an improvement in the players’ behaviour can work well.”
Martinez needs to calm down
Aston Villa still have a lot to play for in the final weeks of the Premier League season, with Champions League football at stake for 2025/26.
The last thing they want to do is approach any of their final games with anyone but Martinez in goals due to him being among the best goalkeepers in the world.
Attwell booked Smith for his challenge on Ramsey.
There was very little need for Martinez to react in the way that he did, with Ramsey then later paying the price for his yellow card for dissent with a second booking.