Former England goalkeeper David James has taken Mikel Arteta to task over the sale of Emi Martinez. The Argentine, who was with Arsenal for a decade, made only 15 Premier League appearances before leaving in 2020 for Aston Villa in a £17 million deal.
Since moving to Villa, Martinez won the World Cup with Argentina in 2022, bagged the Golden Glove award, and was named as the Best FIFA Men's Goalkeeper for 2022. .
Speaking on the Seaman Says podcast, James stated his belief that Arteta made a mistake in allowing Martinez to leave: "It's interesting when you look at Premier League goalkeepers over a number of years now, there's not many characters. Prior to that there were more characters for whatever reason.
"He [Emiliano Martinez] has character, everything about him is character, he's a big-game player. He wants to be in the biggest games. When you look at the [David] Raya and [Aaron] Ramsdale situation at Arsenal and obviously Martinez was allowed to go because of Bernd Leno, who's a decent goalkeeper.
"But I think Martinez would have been the perfect goalkeeper for Arsenal right now. I think he's a monster. Weirdly there's not a lot of goalkeepers in the Premier League these days who are capable of getting to the top corner.", reports the Mirror.
Since Martinez departed, there's been quite the shake-up in Arsenal's goalkeeping ranks. Ramsdale was snapped up from Sheffield United back in 2021 only to then find a new home at Southampton and Bernd Leno was off-loaded to Fulham.
Amidst all the shifts, Raya has secured his position as top goalie following his switch from Brentford after an initial loan period. The Spaniard's form this season is nothing short of impressive, boasting five clean sheets from nine starts.
Discussing Raya's solid performance, former Arsenal keeper Seaman said: "To be fair to David, he has started this season really well. When he first came in under the pressure of replacing Aaron last season, he found it a little bit difficult, if I am honest, and getting used to the pressure of playing for Arsenal, but then he got his confidence back. We are all seeing that this season he has been making some big, big saves at important times of the game. He is having a great season so far."