Aston Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez has admitted he would have bitten your hand off to be in their current situation at the beginning of the season, although he’s frustrated by his number of clean sheets.
El Grafico cover comments from the Argentine goalkeeper today, in which he admits he’s more than happy with how the season has gone at Aston Villa.
The Villans have continued their upward trajectory under Unai Emery’s leadership, at one point competing for the Premier League title.
That ultimately fell away but they’ve continued to push for a top four place, currently sitting fourth in the table on 67 points with two games remaining.
That puts them seven points ahead of Tottenham in fifth, although Ange Postecoglou’s side do have a game in hand, and on course to secure Champions League football.
They’re also into the semi-finals of the Europa Conference League, where they need to overcome a 4-2 defeat to Olympiacos from the first leg last week to make it into the final.
Whether they can do so remains to be seen but Martinez insists if he’d been handed the chance to sign for such a scenario, he wouldn’t have hesitated, even if one small part of Aston Villa’s season is irritating him.
“If you told me at the beginning that we were going to be fourth, two games from finishing the Premier League and playing in a Conference League semifinal, I would have signed it,” he said.
Martinez wanted more clean sheets this season, but can add a few and make himself an even bigger hero in Argentina this summer: “I would have liked to have a clean sheet a little more, but I’ll save it for the national team in the Copa América.”
