Aston Villa are having a great season in the Premier League so far and part of this has been done to the signings they bought in the summer. Former Villa defender Alan Hutton has heaped praise on one of these acquisitions.
Hutton raves over Emiliano Martinez
“Confidence, seriously. It is a huge part of it. Obviously in previous teams that I played, we’ve conceded quite a lot of goals, confidence is low, they’ve rotated a lot. One was in for three games, then another one, then a new goalkeeper came in. I think I played with about eight different goalkeepers in eight, nine years so that in itself is not great.
“For him to come in, he’s a calming influence, he’s good with his feet, you can hear him actually talking to his back four, he’s a big guy who comes out and commands his area, catches balls – all these things breed confidence within a group.
“You can see with his performances on the pitch, they’ve been unbelievable, some of the saves he makes. He’s a key part of that Villa squad.”
Martinez is showing his quality
Hutton isn’t the first person this season to pile the praise on Martinez and he won’t be the last, with pundit Michael Brown saying: “He’s going so well, he’s got that confidence and it just looks like a brilliant signing.”
Indeed his stats show why he has been a “brilliant signing”. In his 21 appearances this season, he has made 75 saves and kept eleven clean sheets (Premier League) – this is the second most clean sheets in the division.
The club currently sit in the top ten in the Premier League, and if they win their games in hand they could end up in the top five (SofaScore). The praise he has received is well deserved and with him in between the sticks, the could Villains do the unthinkable and finish in the top six.
In other news: Aston Villa fans flocked to this update by Gregg Evans, find out more here.
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