Arsenal make shock goalkeeper move; rumour mongers left looking extremely silly

By Sir Hardly Anyone

It is surely the biggest indictment so far of the millions of pages of rumours spread across thousands of bloggettas and newspapers that virtually no one picked up in advance on the loan of Emiliano Martinez to Getafe CF, before it happened.

All those inside stories from people really in the know who actually turned out not to be in the know at all!  Well what a surprise!!  It really makes one feel that Untold’s long term view that none of these stories is based on proper knowledge, at least until the last day of a transfer.  Rather all of them are just concepts built from running lists of clubs and players against each other and then picking two at random.

Certainly that notion of random guesswork would accord with last season’s revelation of a success rate of under 3% in the transfer lists.  And it is not as if the newspapers and their on line sidekicks have been slow in coming forwards in terms of Arsenal players leaving this summer.

The issues arising from this sudden move now run like this…

First we’ve had three goalkeepers in our pre-season games – Cech, Ospina and Martinez.  Ospina has been tipped all summer long to be leaving the premises, but in fact it is Martinez who has gone.

Second does this mean Ospina is leaving?

Third who are our four goalkeepers for the season?

I have no insight into the Ospina situation, but given the accuracy level of transfer tips so far this should mean that with him regularly tipped to be leaving, he is probably staying.   Which means we need two more keepers in addition to Cech and Ospina.

Traditionally Arsenal have had three over 21 keepers in the list of 25 nominated players, plus the best under 21 keeper in fourth place.  Obviously the fourth choice keeper rarely gets a game, but he does sit on the bench for League Cup matches, and also when we have a real goalkeeping crisis can find himself beached for other games.  He will also still play in the Premier League 2 matches.

The obvious keeper now to step up is Matt Macey who was fourth keeper last season, but is now no longer qualified as an under 21, and so if he is part of the squad, he has to be counted in the “25”.  He played in the game against Borehamwood.

And the fourth keeper will be…

Well, we also have on the books Deyan Iliev and Ryan Huddart.  Iliev is Macedonian and 22 years old, and he missed out last season with a knee injury but seems to remain highly rated by the club and has been retained  He is an under 21 international.

Huddart is English and signed a new contract in March 2016 and is an England youth international.  He went on loan to Eastleigh last season but was called back in January this year as extra cover after seven games in goal for club in the National League.

I always defer to Andrew on these matters but according to my abacus Huddart still qualifies as an under 21, and so I think he will have the fourth keeper’s shirt this season.

As for Martinez, he’s now 24, and upon the breaking of the news of his departure for the year he said,  “I came from nothing and I’m at Arsenal now, one of the biggest clubs in the world, but I’m never satisfied. I was third choice fighting for second spot, so maybe the season after I will fight for No 1. You always need to give more at Arsenal. It’s never enough and that’s what I try to do.”

Getafe were relegated to the second division two years ago, and promoted back to the first last season.  Their keeper is Vicente Guaita who has played 75 games for the club after transferring from Valencia.  The indications are therefore the Martinez is now indeed the backup for the first team keeper and will get to see life in the Spanish top league.  He obviously speaks fluent Spanish, given that he is Argentinian.

Here is the top of the Spanish second division for last season – Getafe’s defence was not particularly worse than other top clubs but not stand out strong.

And below is the latest list of Arsenal loans, released players and sold players.  Players still registered to Arsenal are show in red.