Emiliano Martinez the cult hero who is hoping to upset his old Arsenal team-mates

The last time Emiliano Martínez pulled on an Arsenal shirt, he did so as an Aston Villa player. The goalkeeper had just completed his move to the Midlands in September, having decided that the time had finally come for a new adventure, but he could not start this fresh chapter of his career without saying a proper farewell to the club that had shaped his life.

At Martínez’s request, he sat down for one final interview with the Arsenal website. It was his choice to speak and his choice to wear an Arsenal shirt, despite no longer being registered to the club. “I don’t want to leave without saying goodbye,” he said, his voice cracking just a little. “I could not be happier to leave through the front door.”

Not all players do so. In the last month alone, some of Arsenal’s highest-profile players have shuffled out through the back door instead. One can almost imagine Mikel Arteta slamming that door behind Mesut Özil and Shkodran Mustafi as they went, their contracts terminated and their Arsenal connections severed at last.

For Martínez, that connection remains strong. It is a measure of his impact in north London, where he spent a decade, that Arsenal’s players and staff will be genuinely happy to see him again when they travel to Villa Park on Saturday afternoon.

That said, they might not be quite so cheerful if he goes on to shut out his former team-mates, as he did when Villa thrashed Arsenal at the Emirates earlier this season. He was in fine form that night, and has been largely excellent for Villa ever since he joined the club for £17 million (rising to £20m) in the summer.

A minor wobble against West Ham United in midweek marked perhaps the first time he has put a foot wrong this campaign, but it did not change the fact that Martínez has been one of the most successful signings of the Premier League season.

Villa’s pursuit of the 28-year-old gathered real speed after the FA Cup final, when he broke down in tears of joy after helping Arsenal to victory over Chelsea. Villa have spent nearly £35m on goalkeepers in less than three years, but it is Martínez who has now emerged as arguably their best No 1 since Brad Friedel.

In the league this season, only Manchester City’s Ederson has kept more than Martínez, who along with Chelsea’s Edouard Mendy has 10 clean sheets, while no goalkeeper in Europe’s top five leagues has kept more clean sheets away from home. Martínez dominates his area, is comfortable with the ball at his feet and has, in the words of Dean Smith, an “aura” about him.

Martínez has always believed in his own ability and that confidence has helped him to settle. He has already forged a tight relationship with goalkeeping coach Neil Cutler, with whom he can often be seen on the training pitches long before the outfield players have emerged from the changing rooms.

Such was Martínez’s desperation to make an instant impact at Villa, and to make it a home for him and his family, that he had already looked at three or four properties in the area before he had taken part in one training session. He arrived with a self-belief that was both striking and impressive to his colleagues.

On a technical level, Martínez has also brought a new weapon to the Villa attack. He boasts a remarkably powerful and accurate side-volleying technique, and is capable of launching the ball like a cannon into the opposition half. In matches against teams who press higher up the pitch, Villa and Martínez have made it a conscious part of their game-plan for Martínez to fire these volleys into the path of Ollie Watkins.

“His distribution out of his hands was probably the best I have seen from a goalkeeper,” says Carl Ikeme, the former Wolves goalkeeper who competed with Martínez for a first-team position during the Argentine’s loan spell in 2015/16.

“I knew he had the potential to go on and have the success that he has. He just needed the games and experience. He is really quick and agile for such a big man, is good at coming for crosses and is sharp to the floor. When you look at goalkeepers you sometimes think ‘he is good at this but he can’t do that’. With Emi that’s not true – he can do the lot. Villa are reaping the rewards.”

As well as Wolves, Martínez also had loan spells at Oxford United, Sheffield Wednesday, Rotherham United, Getafe and Reading as he waited for his chance at Arsenal. It finally came last summer, when Bernd Leno was injured in June. Martinez went on to start the final 11 games of Arsenal’s season, excelling in their FA Cup run.

From Arsenal’s perspective, his performances raised his value in a financially challenging summer. They also had Leno, Arteta’s No 1, and there was an acceptance from Martínez that the time had come for him to be the undisputed first-choice at a new club. It was not an easy decision to take for a player who had joined Arsenal as a teenager, but he has not looked back since.

“I came here as a young boy, single, from Argentina, from a poor country and a poor family” he said in that farewell interview. “And I am leaving with a wife, with a kid and as a man.”

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