For the longest time all anyone could speak about was how Emiliano Martínez was on the brink of leaving Aston Villa. The commonly believed exit target point was, of course, Manchester United. There were some murmurs of the Saudi League as well, but the main idea is that 'Dibu' would soon be in anything other than claret and blue.
Since then, United have brought in players, but those have been field positions. By all accounts, Ruben Amorim appears ready to keep André Onana in net.
This, of course, provides something of a difficulty for those who have insisted that Villa would be forced to experience life without the world's number one.
Now with clubs either wrapping up the Club World Cup or starting the preseason activities, the potential landing spots would be even more limited than what they already were during the height of the constant insistence. Like it or not, Villa have done well and have secured the future of Martínez in B6 despite the media at large practically writing the Argentina international's contract for United.
Same keeper at Aston Villa for upcoming season
Something of a disheartening aspect of all of this was seeing how many Villa fans, too, were only too eager to move on from Martínez. There is certainly always going to be room for disagreement and discussion. Only, for someone who has performed so well and meant so much to Villa, one would think there would be more unanimous support for the keeper.
In any event, Villa are now set to begin their campaign and are preparing for the upcoming season with a busy July full of preseason fixtures. When Martínez will make his debut is not known. Someone else may see time between the posts to start the friendly schedule with. At this point, though, it would take something seismic and a complete shock to see anyone other than Martínez against Brentford. (Remember, 'Dibu' picked up that red card against United for the last match of the 2024-2025 season.)