From sitting on the pitching crying whilst speaking to his parents in 2020 to making rude gestures in 2022. Emi Martinez has gone from humble hero to arrogant villan in a little over 2 years.

After the 2020 Fa Cup final, whilst his team mates celebrated around him, Martinez took the time to sit down with a phone and call his parents. He was in floods of tears.

Martinez left his native Argentina to join Arsenal shortly after his 17th birthday. Despite heaps of talent, it was beginning to look like it would not happen for him.

Loan spells took him to Oxford United, Sheffield United, Rotherham United, Wolves, Getafe and Reading. It was only in that final loan spell that he began showing that he might have the talent to be a Premier League football.

His breakthrough at Arsenal came through injury to Bernd Leno. The infamous incident at Brighton saw Leno’s season end and Martinez come in for the final 6 Premier League games and 6 FA Cup games.

In that short period he would become a fan favourite. Making fantastic saves, showing brilliant distribution, and becoming a key player as we won the FA Cup.

His actions at the final whistle just further added to his connection to the fans. He was our humble hero.

And then it all changed.

With a year left on his contract, he made it clear that he would only sign a new one if Arsenal guaranteed he would be number 1. A club like The Arsenal can never guarantee that.

He might have been key in the closing stages of the elongated 2019/20 season, but he had no right to make those sort of demands.

Now 28, he had been at Arsenal for a decade. During that time he had played just 16 Premier League games for us; and a toal of 38 first team appearances.

To demand to be guaranteed a start ahead of Bernd Leno – who had over 400 senior appearances in England and Germany – perhaps showed the arrogance that was bubbling under.

He had been fairly unimpressive on loan and had the reputation of “being a good shot stopper, but has a mistake in him”. A poor mans Wojciech Szczesny

Arsenal did the right thing and told him “no”. They could not guarantee him the number one spot. Especially with so few top level games under his belt.

Martinez probably expected a whole host of clubs at home and abroad to come in for him. But the interest di not materialise.

He ended up joining Aston Villa – who had finished 17th and just one point above the relegation zone.

In his first season at Villa, he showed that he was a decent Premier League season.

Plenty of game winning performances, but he always had the mistakes in him.

The media would hype him up to paint a negative picture around Arsenal. About how we let go one of the leagues best keepers. But he has never really been one of the best in the Premier League.

Playing for a lower team, there is a lot less scrutany on performances.

A mistake for Villa is probably not live on Sky Sports. Will not end up with Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher, et al over analysising a poor performance. Will be hidden away towards the end of MOTD as Linekar, Wright and Shearer dedicate their time to more relevant games.

And will not be spoken about for days after the games on Sky Sports News, TalkSport, newspapers and social media.

I call it the Jussi Jaaskelainen.

If the Finish keeper had a great performance for Bolton, it would be highlighted for weeks. Any poor performance would barely get a mention. This would lead opposition fans to think Jussi was better than what he was.

Martinez is of similar ilk.

A great performance for Villa gets highlighted, a poor one is swept under the carpet.

As he got more game time in the Premier League, he also broke through to the Argentine goal keeper. A fairly easy thing to do when their second choice is a 36 year old who plays for River Plate – and other competition are those that have spent careers warming benches across Europe’s mid-table teams.

And it was for Argentina his hype grew further.

2021 Copa America semi-final hero in a penalty shoot out. MOTM against Brazil in the final.

And then in the recent World Cup, he was once again their penalty hero and (probably) should have been Man of the Match in the final.

But at the final whistle, he showed he was a changed man from 2022. The behaviour could not have been any more different.

From crying on the pitch to mocking opponents and making rude gestures. A classless winner.

The humble hero was dead and instead replaced by an arrogant, egotistical villan.

He has been labelled “the most hated man in France” following his behaviour. There is now talk that Unai Emery plans to replace him at Villa.

And if he does leave Villa, where does he go?

In his mind, it will be Manchester United, Barcelona or Chelsea. The reality is many of the top clubs will see him for what he is – an error prone, inconsistent keeper who can be a match winner one day & lose you a game the next. Throw in the new arrogant characteristics and many will stay well clear.

If he does end up at top team, it will be interesting to see how he does with the increased scrutiny – lets remember his Arsenal performances came with no crowds.

A clearly emotional guy, will he be able to handle the Nou Camp or San Siro faithful getting on his back?

Martinez will probably say “so what, I do not care what anyone thinks” whilst polishing his World Cup winners medal. And he has every right to do that.

But I also imagine in years to come, he will regret his antics in the final. His behaviour. The pictures that will never be forgotten.

Final thought on me is that it is clear Arsenal made the right decision not guaranteeing him first team football. Winning the World Cup does not make you a top player. He has yet to show for Villa that he can perform consistently at the top level.

The final irony is that had he not thrown his toys out of the pram and demanded to leave if he was not first choice, he may well have ended up with our number 1 on his back. But he did not have the stomach for the fight.

If Aaron Ramsdale was Argentinian, he would be their first choice keeper.

Keenos

Have you checked out our #Arsenal bar paraphernalia area yet? #AFC #arspsvhttps://t.co/lBkFuWS5xa pic.twitter.com/FNKkutVQJ6

— Kick Off Merchants (@KOMerchants) October 20, 2022

West Ham were poor. Let’s get that out the way first.

My £20 at 10/1 is looking like a nice little bet right now. After a couple of seasons getting too big for their boots, the Cockney lads from Essex are back to their natural level. Relegation battlers.

Even at 1-nil down, we never looked like we were not going to win. And if Martin Odegaard learns to curl it inside the post rather than outside, we would’ve hit 5.

Man of the moment thought was Eddie Nketiah.

All the noise about Gabriel Jesus’s injury creating a crisis, that it would cost us the league, were silenced in that 90 minute performance.

Some had forgotten that Eddie has scored 5 goals in his previous 8 Premier League starts. The Boxing Day winner made it 6 in 9. Not bad for someone who so many have written off as “not Premier League quality.”

Eddie has always been a natural goal scorer, but in the last 12 months he has also added a better work rate and hold up play to his game. And I think credit to that has to go to Mikel Arteta.

The World Cup was supposed to break our momentum. We were meant to suffer a hangover from it. But we have kept up our 100% winning record and it looked like we had never been away.

From back to front we were excellent- and a special shout out to Ben White.

We now come up to a tricky run.

Brighton is someone we have struggled against in recent times with just 2 wins in our last 10 games.

Newcastle at home is a top of the table clash. And then it is Tottenham (A), Man U (H) and Everton (A).

I won’t begin predicting the points we will get. All that matters is the New Years Eve game against Brighton. We win the league this season but not getting too far ahead of ourselves.

Final shout out to William Saliba.

It was a silly swipe that gave away the penalty, and some poor decision making prior to that which led to him being in the position to need to make a challenge. But he recovered well and had a decent game.

He is still just 21-years-old and only trained twice since the World Cup. It shows Arteta’s faith in him that he was trusted to come straight back in.

Onwards and upwards

Keenos

Have you checked out our #Arsenal bar paraphernalia area yet? #AFC #arspsvhttps://t.co/lBkFuWS5xa pic.twitter.com/FNKkutVQJ6

— Kick Off Merchants (@KOMerchants) October 20, 2022

Arsenal (0) 3 West Ham United (1) 1

Premier League

Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU

Monday, 26th December 2022. Kick-off time: 8.00pm

(4-3-3) Aaron Ramsdale; Ben White, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhães, Kieran Tierney; Martin Ødegaard (c), Thomas Partey, Granit Xhaka; Bukayo Saka, Eddie Nketiah, Gabriel Martinelli.

Substitutes: Rob Holding, Cédric Soares, Fabio Vieira, Albert Sambi Lokonga, Mohamed Elneny, (Marcus Vinicius Oliveira Alencar) Marquinhos, Matt Turner, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Amario Cozier-Duberry.

Scorers: Bukayo Saka (53 min), Gabriel Martinelli (59 mins), Eddie Nketiah (69 mins)

Arsenal Possession Percentage: 67%

Referee: Michael Oliver

Assistant Referees: Stuart Burt, Simon Bennett

Fourth Official: Graham Scott

VAR Team at Stockley Park: VAR Darren England; AVAR Darren Cann

Attendance: circa 60,000

Well, it has certainly been a while since our last Premiership match against Wolverhampton Wanderers on 12th November, and it is good to be back. Although Mikel Arteta hoped to have both Oleksandr Zinchenko and Takehiro Tomiyasu fit following minor injuries, but sadly only the former is fit enough to sit on the substitute’s bench tonight. Emile Smith-Rowe is close to returning but Gabriel Jesus recently had knee surgery for his injury sustained in the World Cup and Reiss Nelson is injured.

After a respectful round of applause for the life of George Cohen, a World Cup winner with England back in 1966 who passed away on 23rd December, the visitors kicked off the last of the 2022 Boxing Day fixtures. After a very good and confident start in which we were passing the ball around in the visitors’ half, Bukayo Saka got the ball into the net, but it was disallowed for offside, unfortunately. A couple of minutes later, Jarrod Bowen had the dubious honour of being the first player booked tonight for an amateurish lunging tackle on Gabriel Martinelli, and this only fired us up to put more pressure on the West Ham goal. Aaron Cresswell played a corner into Lucas Paqueta but it was pushed behind for another corner by Martin Ødegaard. From the resulting corner, Said Benrahma’s twenty-yard shot was saved well by Aaron Ramsdale. We counter-attacked quickly, started by Aaron Ramsdale, but Eddie Nketiah’s superb shot was blocked. Shortly afterwards, Michail Antonio ran onto a long ball and flicked it into the path of Jarrod Bowen, who pushed it forward into the box and just past William Saliba, who slid in and clipped him slightly on the ankle. A penalty was thus awarded, and Said Benrahma scored the opening goal of the night. The goal fired up the visitors, who started to put us under pressure; we quickly snapped out of it and got back to where we were before the penalty was awarded to them. The goal certainly livened up proceedings, and ten minutes before the break, we nearly scored when Eddie Nketiah ran onto a ball into the penalty area, and his flick over a defender did not quite land quickly enough to enable him to shoot and then he could not get the pass to Bukayo Saka quick enough to give the England man a proper chance, and the promising effort went awry. Ben White then sidestepped a defender but his cross was too high for Gabriel Martinelli to do anything with it, and another chance went begging. The visitors quckly regrouped and Michail Antonio ran onto a long ball, sent William Saliba the wrong way and blasted a shot wide, which all in all was fortunate that he did. Vladimir Coufal received a yellow card for an appalling tackle on Gabriel Martinelli, and in the last minute of injury time, we were awarded a penalty by referee Michael Oliver, but on the advice of the VAR team, he went to the monitor and found that Aaron Cresswell’s arms were raised but the ball hit his face, so the penalty was cancelled out and we went into the break a goal down.

We started the second half off in earnest, and we had forty-five minutes to get a result here at the Emirates tonight, but within a minute or so of the restart, Michail Antonio ran in on our goal, and fortunately Aaron Ramsdale was on hand to neutralise the problem. This threat woke us up, and then Martin Ødegaard pulled the ball back for Thomas Partey, whose low twenty-five yard shot was saved by Lukasz Fabianski. Moments later, Jarrod Bowen caught Kieran Tierney with an accidental elbow and he went down to the pitch in pain, but was able to continue fortunately. Eight minutes after the restart, Martin Ødegaard dragged a terrible shot from twenty yards, which landed at the feet of the unmarked Bukayo Saka in the box, who slotted it coolly into the bottom corner of the net to equalise the scores. Just five minutes later, we took the lead when Bukayo Saka won the ball off Declan Rice and found Martin Ødegaard, who passed it to Granit Xhaka, who slotted the ball to Gabriel Martinelli, who was charging into the visitors’penalty area. Gabriel Martinelli smashed the ball past Lukasz Fabianski at his near post; the goalie stuck out a foot but could not keep the ball out of the back of the net. This goal livened the match up even more, with both teams attacking each other’s goals with purpose, but ten minutes after our second goal, Granit Xhaka passed the ball to Ben White, who flicked the ball past Said Benrahma. He easily found Martin Ødegaard, who gave a first-time pass to Eddie Nketiah. The Arsenal striker spun past Thilo Kehrer and slotted the ball into the far bottom corner for our third goal of the night. Shortly afterwards, Kieran Tierney was replaced by the returning Oleksandr Zinchenko and with fifteen minutes of the game remaining, we were in control. Martin Ødegaard almost grabbed a fourth goal shortly afterwards, when his curled shot went narowly wide of the goal, and with ten minutes of the game remaining, both Gabriel Martinelli and Martin Ødegaard were despereatly unlucky not to score when their respective shots went narrowly wide. Martin Ødegaard passed the ball out to Bukayo Saka on the right flank, but his first-time cross was cut out by Craig Dawson deep in the West Ham penalty area. Gabriel Martinelli was replaced by Fabio Vieira with three minutes of normal time left on the clock, and in the four minutes injury time, despite Thomas Partey being replaced by Mohamed Elneny, game management became the order of the day to ensure that we took all three points at the end of the match.

On the night of the third anniversary that Mikel Arteta became the first-team manager, Arsène Wenger returned to Arsenal to watch this team of stars show their true title credentials by coming back into the match after being on the back foot following a messy first half penalty. Gabriel Martinelli, Bukayo Saka and captain Martin Ødegaard were the outstanding players here tonight, but in essence, everyone played their part in this victory tonight. We showed our character when we were a goal down early on in the game; they simply gritted their teeth and carried on, and in the end, Arsenal got their reward. All we have to do is keep it up; Arsenal have some tough tests ahead, but this team are more than capable of rising to the challenge over the next few months. Exciting times ahead for everyone!

Remember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as this season is going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. Our next match: Brighton and Hove Albion at the Amex Stadium on Saturday, 31st December at 5.30pm (Premier League). Be there, if you can. Victoria Concordia Crescit.

Steve

Too Dearly Loved To Be Forgotten: Arsenal v Racing Club de Paris 1930-1962 by Steve Ingless (Rangemore Publications, ISBN 978-1-5272-0135-4) is now available on Amazon