Aston Villa might be considering the double first goalkeepers set up, should Emiliano Martinez fail to depart from Villa Park.
Aston Villa have just presented their two new signings, Matteo Ruggeri and Zion Suzuki. Their arrival interestingly gives contrastive impact to the management and ultimately, Unai Emery himself.
Ruggeri comes at the right moment as the club was looking for the left back position following the departure of Lucas Digne and the need to provide competition for the inconsistent form of Ian Maatsen.
However, Suzuki’s presence brings complexity in their goalkeeping department as Emi Martinez’s move to Juventus was off the table. Now, Villa are stuck with two top shot stoppers in the team and they need to resolve it soon before the Premier League begins or at least on the deadline day.
So far Martinez’s only suitor is Tottenham. Spurs have just lost Gugliemo Vicario who went on loan to La Vecchia Signora. It remains to be seen if the Argentine would be open in switching sides to the Lions rival when they have no European competition in their fixtures.
Should the world cup winner stay in Villa Park after the deadline day, Emery would have to consider utilizing both in double first goalkeepers solution. The Spaniard is no stranger to such situation before, not just once or twice. He undoubtedly could do the same to The West Midlands side.
The first time Emery dealt with having two top goalkeepers in one team was in Valencia 2010/11. He had the rising star Vicente Guaita and the senior goalie Cesar Sanchez, plus Miguel Moya, who was merely given an understudy for both in the squad.
Emery then shared the task between them. Guaita played 28 games, and responsible for four Champions League matches and 21 La Liga games, whereas the former Real Madrid man, Sanchez featured in also four UCL matches and 15 La Liga fixtures. Los Ches still managed to finish third in domestic league and advanced to the round of 16 in the Champions League.
Then in the following season, Valencia shared the games equally for Vicente Guaita and the Brazilian new signing, Diogo Alves. Each was fielded 30 times with Alves getting a nod more in Europa and domestic cup plus only 12 La Liga matches. On the contrary, Guaita featured more in La Liga with 26 games. Emery was still able to guide them finish third and reaching semifinal in Europa League.
His first season in PSG also pushed Emery to use two goalkeepers almost equally again. Back in the 2016/17, he had the established Kevin Trapp and top talent Alphonse Areola at his disposal.
The current Villa boss eventually started Trapp 31 times with more games in Ligue 1 (24 matches) plus UCL knockout stage games and domestic cup, while Areola was given 27 games in total, which includes six games in UCL group stage, 15 league games and six French Cup matches.
Although they failed to win the league, Le Parisien thrived in all domestic cups. Their campaign in UCL was fine until they were humiliatingly beaten in the historic comeback against Barcelona. They lost 6-1 in Camp Nou and threw away their 4-goal advantage in the previous fixture.
Last but not least was in his first season in Villareal. Once again, Emery had two fine goakeepers in the team, Sergio Asenjo and Geronimo Rulli. In the 2020/21, he deployed Asenjo in 37 game, mostly in La Liga, whereas the Argentine Rulli got a nod in 20 games, mainly in Europa League and Copa del Rey.
The result was incredible. The Yellow Submarine won their first ever title in Europa League and finished in top four to qualify to the Champions League.
Therefore, having both Suzuki and Martinez this season could be an advantage for Villa, provided they could share the task to them almost equally. The Japanese could be playing more in the league and domestic cups for getting more experienced at the top level as well as learning from Martinez. The Argentine would be more ideal to feature in the Premier League big games and the Champions League fixtures.
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