Aston Villa are approaching the business end of the season.

Although Unai Emery would have been frustrated at watching his side throw away a 2-0 lead to draw 2-2 at home to Chelsea on Sunday, the point did secure guaranteed Europa League football next season.

With Villa playing the Europa Conference League this campaign this represents progress, but what the club really want is a Champions League place.

With Tottenham losing 3-2 to Arsenal on Sunday, the Villans remain in pole position to achieve this as they sit seven points ahead of Spurs with the North London club having two games in hand.

Attention now turns to Europe, with Villa welcoming Olympiacos to Villa Park on Thursday for the first leg of their Europa Conference League semi-final.

Aston Villa without Emi Martinez for Olympiacos clash

Given the magnitude of this clash, Emery would have loved a fully fit squad to choose from.

Unfortunately, the Spanish manager, who signed a new contract last week, will not be afforded this luxury.

Youri Tielemans has been playing his best football since joining in the summer recently but went off injured in the first-half against Chelsea and is therefore a doubt for Thursday.

Perhaps more worryingly, though, is the fact that Villa’s World Cup winning goalkeeper Emi Martinez was forced off at half-time of the Chelsea draw.

The 31-year-old would have missed the first leg of the semi-final anyway, with UEFA suspending the goalkeeper despite the fact he escaped a red card after picking up a second yellow card in the penalty shootout triumph over Lille in the last round due to a strange loophole.

Whilst the extent of the Argentine’s injury has not been revealed by the club, Infobae have suggested the injury is not as bad as first feared and the stopper could return in time for the second leg.

Until then, Swedish ‘keeper Robin Olsen will deputise as he did in the second-half against Chelsea.

Comparing Martinez and Robin Olsen statistically

Olsen conceded twice off the bench against Chelsea on Saturday but it is difficult to attribute any blame to the back-up goalkeeper.

The 34-year-old has never made more than 29 league appearance in a single season in his whole career according to Transfermarkt and has acted primarily as a number two across spells at the likes of AS Roma, Everton and Sheffield United.

With the Swede set to step in for Martinez for the immediate future, how does he compare to the former Arsenal man?

Well, a look at the data available on Premier League goalkeepers this season on FBREF allows us to asses this.

Firstly, it should be noted that Olsen has only played three league games this season whilst Martinez has played 33, so the sample size for the deputy is obviously far smaller.

However, a look at the data shows Martinez hugely outperforming Olsen in one key metric.

This is when you take the number of goals conceded compared to how many each goalkeeper would be expected to concede based on the quality of the shot.

In this metric, Martinez has outperformed the expected goals conceded by 6.8; meaning he has effectively prevented nearly seven goals that he would expected to let in.

The Villa keeper is actually the top performing ‘keeper in the Premier League for this statistic and this equates to 0.21 goals prevented per 90 minutes.

Olsen does not compare favourably in this regard, alluding to a huge drop off in quality when he replaces Martinez.

Olsen ranks 29th in the Premier League in this metric, having conceded 2.8 goals more than he would have been expected to despite playing just 225 minutes; this equals 1.11 extra goals conceded per 90 minutes.

Martinez is also joint leader in the league in terms of crosses stopped, with his 42 matched only by Wolves Jose Sa.

Olsen has only stopped three, but given he has only faced 25 this is not a fair comparison.

When the percentage of crosses stopped is assessed however, Olsen actually ranks higher than his colleague – stopping 12% to Martinez’ 11.6%.

Martinez does performs better than his fellow goalkeeper in terms of save percentage, saving 66.7% of the shots he has faced in the English top flight this season.

Olsen, meanwhile has saved 58.8% of the 17 shots he has faced in the Premier League.

Perhaps it is purely logical that a second-choice goalkeeper does not perform as well as the player ahead of them, but Villa fans will be hoping Olsen can step up in Martinez’ absence.

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