Emi Martinez

[villa for life]

A bit of perspective is required. If we miss out on Champions League, it is likely to be because of our defence and our poor goal difference. A big if. Emi is a brilliant goalkeeper but if we don’t sell now, he may decline. It cannot be argued that that he Has made mistakes this season.  Now is the ultimate time to sell and move on, I trust Unai Emery.

This.

[Beard82]

I feel incredibly flat this morning about football.  Since I’ve been watching Villa I can count the number of world class players on 1 hand and have fingers spare. 

Now we have one who loves the club and has 4 years left on his contract.  I don’t see the point in it to be honest.  We won’t be able to compete.  The first half of this season was spent trying to workout how to play without dougie and it looks like it will be the same next season. 

Also what’s the point if all the players fan build connections get sold. 

I know we’ll all move on - but this enforced ceiling is ruining the game for me

[Nii Lamptey]

It does have the air of we're not supposed to have nice things. Little Aston Villa doing well - We can't be having that... derail them by forcing them to sell their best players, while clubs stinking the league out such as Man Utd can be billions in debt without batting an eyelid.

Douglas Luis, Moussa Diaby, Jhon Duran, Emi Martinez and Leon Bailey. An ever growing list of players that would absolutely not have been sold were it not for PSR protecting the status quo of the Super League clubs.

Even though we're riding the crest of a wave in footballing terms, I'm starting to hate what football is becoming.

Emi offers so much more to us than two gloves between the sticks. This would be as heartbreaking for me as when we sold Dwight Yorke.

[andyh]

I love Emi. He has been absolutely brilliant for the club, as we have for him.
But, I can’t help thinking we have been witnessing the very slow decline in his standards this season.
He is still an excellent keeper but the team evolves and we have to accept that Unai and Monchi have a plan.

We thought we’d never move on after Joe, but we did.
We thought Dougie was irreplaceable. He obviously wasn’t.

We have to prepare ourselves, Emi will not be the only or last big player that leaves this summer.

We must trust the process.

All that said, I’ll be distraught if and when Ginny and Mings leave us.

[VillaTim]

What a brilliant signing he has been , take a bow Deano/Lange ? for bringing him here . Best keeper in the club's history, Worlds Nr1,  and we have been lucky enough to watch him week in week out. He will be a big loss but players come and go, always have always will .

[waynejames]

Don't worry Youri is a good goalie

[Beard82]

I don’t think he’s been off it this season - I also don’t think at 32 that he is anywhere near the end.

I trust unai but I don’t think this is part of the process - a process is of continual improvement - not having to replace good players just for accountancy purposes. 

We sold diaby and luiz last summer and we really missed them both in the first half of the season.  We got it right eventually but that isn’t a process

[BC Villain]

I can’t be the only one sick of our sporting director treating our best players like rubbish and then replacing them with mediocrity.  Luiz outstanding last season, we cash in.  Duran brilliant first half of this season,  we cash in.  Now Martinez and the pound signs are in their eyes.  It's becoming quite spiteful.

The cashing in is fuck all to do with the sporting director and all to do with trying to be PSR compliant, both in the league AND in Europe.

Would you have wanted Watkins cashed in on instead of Duran, we needed to do one of them?

Not when we happily accept cut price deals.  That's nothing do with PSR, but because we keep choosing to do it that way.  We need to start being clever in the market and not just roll over and accept the first offer that comes along.  Duran would have stayed if Emery hadn't insisted on messing him about.  As for Martinez,  look at his demeanor tonight.  Clearly doesn't want to go, yet the club are trying to force him out.

So you don't think Duran messed Emery and the club about and left because he was forcibly sold  into football slavery in Saudi Arabia.  He could probably have gone to one of any number of top European clubs but he wanted MONEY!

100% Duran would have stayed had he not been in an out of the team.  Im sure he will be back in the PL in the next couple of years.  He's pretty much the only reason we had such a good start to the season and got through to the knock out stage of the Champions League. 

[dorsetvillian]

Rightly everyone  seems so depressed with the potential news that Emi will leave and all because of PSR. So that's Grealish, Dougie, Diaby,  Duran and now Emi all sold to balance the books. It's so fucking corrupt and really does question why bother with modern football....

[OCD]

The good thing is that once we're regularly qualifying for CL and grown our commercial revenue enough, we should be over these problems. It's just we're in a transitionary period between having a much smaller commercial operation in a time where the Sky 6 have done a pretty good job of bolting the door behind them to stop upstarts like us overtaking them.

[PaulWinch again]

Sorry you’re just talking nonsense - “accept first offer that comes along” I struggle to see how any of the sales we’ve made haven’t made sense - I didn’t want to lose Doug, but he wanted to go. Duran was always agitating and we got a brilliant price.

[JUAN PABLO]

Emi was the player that got my son more into Villa . I wasnt sure he was going to get  the Villa bug and one day I saw Emi on my sons screen saver on phone and I had a massive smile and lift and now we watch all the games together in his shirt.

Would never let him go myself and not sure he really would want too. If this is because of PSR , its f***** Sh1t . .. 

[Monty]

Emi has been below his best this year. He might get it back, he might not, who knows. He's not been terrible by any means, but he has made quite a few errors and been less assertive in coming for crosses, which was a very big part of his game for us. He also has been more tentative in his sweeping, which pulls our backline deeper at times, makes us more passive. Again, hardly terrible, we're talking rareified levels here, but not quite the keeper he was.

So he's the asset we have whose sale makes the most sense, if we have to. Which breaks my heart a bit, because I think he's my favourite current player and one of my top three across my lifetime. He's been our magnificent bastard and I love him. I'd love him to stay. But if our hand is forced, and we reckon we can replace him (lots of good keepers out there now!), so be it I guess. [weeping manfully]

[JUAN PABLO]

I thought Barca was 800 million in debt and had also played ineligle players they are going to be in trouble about.     
I did think last night the only 'big team' with an average goalie was Barca . most the others have decent ones , as couldnt see him going Saudi.     

[cdward]

Best keeper in the world? Maybe.
Best keeper Villa have ever had? Definitely.
Will be sad to see him go, and wish him all the best.
It does seem wrong if he doesn’t really want to go though.