“He must have turned up and thought ‘what the hell is going on here’,” laughs Ben Pringle, a former team-mate of Emiliano Martinez at Rotherham, during one of the Argentinians many loan spells in the Football League.
“The changing rooms were Sunday League, the training pitch was next to a golf course, and Steve Evans was manager. It probably couldn’t have been further removed from what he was used to at Arsenal.”
On Friday, Martinez will run out for Aston Villa against his former club as one of the most vaunted keepers in the Premier League and Argentina’s No 1. His route to the top, though, has been unconventional and lengthy, involving stints at Reading, Wolves, Getafe and Sheffield Wednesday, as well as that spell at the New York Stadium.
His first appearance in senior football in England – after arriving at Arsenal from Independiente at the age of 17 – came for Oxford on the final day of the 2011-12 season. The U’s 3-0 defeat against Port Vale provided a baptism of fire for the then 19-year-old, who often found himself third, fourth and maybe even fifth in the Arsenal pecking order during his eight-year stay at the Emirates.
Gerry Peyton was his goalkeeping coach throughout his time with the North London club. Now coaching in Japan – on Awaji Island, which doubled up as England’s base for the 2002 World Cup – he tells i that Martinez always possessed the raw materials to make it, and would probably have been Arsenal’s No 1 by the end of Arsene Wenger’s reign had his final loan spell gone according to plan.
“The last season, when I knew we were going to go [Wenger and Peyton would leave the club at the end of the 2017-18], I spoke to Arsene and told him that Emi was good enough to be Arsenal’s No 1,” Peyton says.
“He said we needed to give him one more season playing every game in one of Europe’s top leagues. Getafe had just been promoted so we spoke to their president and he told us that Emi would play. I sat down with Arsene and told him what we had been guaranteed.
“Despite those promises, Getafe’s manager [Jose Bordalas] played [Vicente] Guaita instead. Emi only ended up playing seven or eight games and the boss was properly angry. He hadn’t played enough games, he had been out on all those loans and now the club wanted to go out and buy an experienced goalkeeper.”
In came Bernd Leno and, despite inspiring Arsenal to FA Cup success in a Covid-hit season, Martinez would soon be on his way to Villa Park for £17m. By which time the 28-year-old perennial understudy was long overdue a leading role.
Not that he ever did anything but keep his feet on the ground at Arsenal.
“A young goalkeeper at 21 years of age who’s signing a £5m contract can easily lose his balance, get carried and lose focus,” says Peyton. “One of the things I loved about Emi was that he kept his life simple. He once told me he had two massive dreams – the first was to be No 1 for Arsenal and to win a big competition. He did that during the club’s FA Cup run [in 2019-20]. His second was to be first choice for Argentina. Emi has achieved both of those.”
Playing at Rotherham was a glaring omission from that wish list. Although, as Peyton recounts, he must have seemed heaven sent to the particular corner of South Yorkshire.
“Rotherham’s manager rang me up and asked me how good he was and whether they could take him on loan,” says the former Ireland international.
“I asked him where they were in the league and he told me they were second from bottom.
“I said if I sent him there, he would keep them up.”
Evans responded by telling Peyton that was what everyone told him. Peyton then told him he would send him and if he wasn’t impressed then he could send him back to London. “A couple of weeks later he rings me up and tells me Emi isn’t just amazing in goal but has also set up four goals in three matches with 70-yard balls from his own box!”
Playing on the left hand side of the Millers’ midfield, Pringle was similarly impressed.
“There was suddenly a lot more confidence,” he says. “You see a lot of players come and go when you’re at a Football League club but some have the kind of impact you just don’t forget. Emiliano was one of those.”
Arsenal’s loss has most definitely been Villa’s gain.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3E19p1J
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