David James has criticised Mikel Arteta’s decision to sell Emi Martinez. The 32-year-old goalkeeper, who only featured 15 times for Arsenal during his 10-year stay at the Emirates Stadium, joined Aston Villa in 2020 for £17m.
Since his departure, Martinez has excelled, notably winning the World Cup with Argentina and earning the Golden Glove award, as well as being named the Best FIFA Men’s Goalkeeper in 2022. On the ‘Seaman Says’ podcast, as quoted by the Mirror, James said: “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 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 Raya and Ramsdale situation at Arsenal and obviously Martinez was allowed to go because of Bernd Leno, who’s a decent goalkeeper.”
The former England international added: “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.”
Following Martinez’s exit, Arsenal have shuffled their goalkeeping pack. The Gunners brought in Aaron Ramsdale from Sheffield United in 2021, but he has since taken the number one spot at Southampton, while Bernd Leno departed to Fulham.
Now taking the reins between the posts, David Raya – signed from Brentford after impressing during a loan spell – is cementing his place in Arteta’s side, bagging five clean sheets in nine games so far this season. On the Spaniard’s performances, Seaman said: “To be fair to David, he has started this season really well.
