Emi Martinez made a rare error in the first few minutes of Aston Villa’s encounter against Liverpool, conceding a horrible own goal.
Villa would qualify for the Champions League with a win, but they got off to the worst possible start just two minutes in.
Mohamed Salah’s run down the side resulted in a through pass to Harvey Elliot, who crossed to find Luis Diaz, and Martinez appeared to have caught the ball before it slipped out of his hands and into the back of the net.
It was a rare error from the World Cup winner, who had previously been lauded by Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher as one of the world’s top goalkeepers.
However, Youri Tielemans responded with a well-placed goal after Ollie Watkins’ excellent run found the Belgian to equalise for Villa.
Should Villa lose, Spurs would be able to cut the gap to one point if they beat Manchester City on Tuesday night.
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Romano claims Chelsea “attentive” to €28 million man in “superb form”; but three main barriers on a transfer
Chelsea purchased two goalkeepers last summer and one the summer before. However, none of those players appear to be especially persuasive right now, and it’s no wonder that we’re still hearing about transfers this summer as the transfer window approaches.
Fabrizio Romano addressed one of these linkages in this week’s special Caught Offside column. Emi Martinez, who moved from Arsenal to Aston Villa, has established himself as a big-name, superstar goalkeeper.
Romano is not convinced by these links just yet.
“Chelsea are also attentive to the goalkeepers market, from what I heard, and I’m aware there have been reports about another former Arsenal player as Emi Martinez has been linked with the Blues after his superb form for Aston Villa,” Romano stated.
“Martinez is currently entirely focused on Villa and enjoys his time at the club. We’ll see what Chelsea decides, but it’s not concrete at this point.”
In all honesty, we don’t see this occurring anytime soon, for a number of reasons.
First and foremost, Aston Villa will compete in the Champions League next season, whereas we will not. Martinez is a hero there, and he will want to reap the benefits of his work in getting him there.
Second, he will be hesitant of leaving Arsenal following his early career problems. He has thrived as a larger fish in a little smaller pond at Villa, which is well-run and upwardly mobile. Chelsea don’t really represent an upgrade on that right now, so why take the risk?
Third, he is only priced at €28 million on TransferMarkt, but Villa presumably consider him priceless given his importance to them, so Chelsea should not expect a cheap trade. However, any of these elements might alter throughout the course of a season, so don’t be surprised if this decision is reconsidered in 12 months.
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