Emi Martinez loaned to Reading

As expected, it’s been a pretty quiet transfer window so far, but someone squeezed out the slowly-closing window today. Backup backup keeper Emi Martinez, he of the...

/checks stat sheet

/double checks to make sure numbers are correct

...zero starts, zero minutes, and zero clean sheets in the league this season (although to be fair, he had a start, and kept a clean sheet, against Qarabag in the Europa League), is being loaned to Reading for the rest of this season. This makes perfect sense - he wasn’t going to dislodge Bernd Leno, and even knocking Petr Cech down a spot was going to be a reach. The 26 year old needs minutes, he wasn’t getting them at Arsenal, so why not go where he would?

Martinez does appear to be a part of Arsenal’s future plans, though, so after Cech’s retirement, I would expect him to push next year for, if not a starting gig, at least a Cup keeper sort of gig, as he is still relatively young (especially for a keeper) and has a lot of time to claim a regular gig at Arsenal.

Hopefully he makes a good impression at Reading, helps keep them in the Championship, and comes back next year ready to take that next step.