Unai Emery blown away by £20m Aston Villa player’s display against Arsenal

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Unai Emery has lauded Emi Martinez after Aston Villa staked a further claim to be considered title contenders by beating Arsenal on Saturday night.

Emery was speaking to Sky Sports (broadcast on 9/12; 20:12) after a John McGinn goal moved the Villans to within one point of the Gunners.

Emi Martinez helped Villa keep a clean sheet against his former club. The Argentinian needs no encouragement to get himself up for this sort of occasion. And he made a number of important saves to keep Mikel Arteta’s side at bay.

Unai Emery lauds Emi Martinez

Certainly, the best save of the lot came in the first-half, with Martinez doing brilliantly to deny Martin Odegaard. The Arsenal captain did not do a great job at disguising where he was going to try to put his effort. But Martinez showed superb anticipation to guess the right way and, quite easily in the end, make the stop.

And while Unai Emery would have surely been proud of all of his players yesterday, he suggested that he was particularly pleased with what he saw from Martinez.

“Happy, I’m very happy. It was a tough match and we were tired, but we started the game well. They were imposing their position on the pitch, but our goalkeeper was amazing,” he told Sky Sports.

“We tried to defend and keep possession longer than we did. We competed and it was a fantastic three points in a tough week. We have to be happy but also keep balance.”

Aston Villa are now title contenders

It really would be a scarcely-believable couple of years if Villa could go on and win the title. Certainly, the 31-year-old would have surely not been able to imagine what would happen in his career just over three years ago.

Since joining Villa for £20 million, Martinez has won the Copa America and the World Cup. He has also been named the best goalkeeper in the world.

It is remarkable how his career has turned around after being continually loaned out at Arsenal.

And for many, it may be a win against his former club which now confirms that Aston Villa are very much in the race to win the Premier League title.