The Emiliano Martinez Chelsea transfer was agreed this week at a fee worth £7.5million, with the 33-year-old due in London for a medical and set to sign a two-year deal at Stamford Bridge with an option to extend by a further year. He turns 34 next week. Villa had been willing to sell since paying around £30million for Parma's Zion Suzuki earlier in August.
Two spills at Craven Cottage
Chelsea won 3-2 at Fulham on Monday and still came away with a goalkeeping problem. Sanchez let Josh King's shot slip through his grasp at the near post, then spilled a second-half effort into a dangerous area for Gonzalo Garcia to convert.
Xabi Alonso was asked afterwards whether he would consider a change between the posts. Four days later, his club had a fee agreed for a Europa League-winning goalkeeper.
That is a sharp turn. The message out of Stamford Bridge all summer had been that Chelsea were content with what they already had, and the people in charge had been keen to back Sanchez, who has been first choice for most of his time at the club since arriving from Brighton & Hove Albion in 2023 and has made 112 appearances.
Martinez was offered to Chelsea by his representatives, according to The Athletic, rather than pursued after months of groundwork. Chelsea did not build this move — they accepted one that landed on the desk at the moment a single Premier League performance had reopened the debate internally.
The Emiliano Martinez Chelsea transfer, priced at £7.5m
Seven and a half million pounds is a modest number for a goalkeeper who started a Europa League final and reached a World Cup final with Argentina last season. The price reflects the position Villa were in, not the player's standing.
Once Suzuki arrived, Martinez became a £30million signing's understudy on a senior wage, with a deadline approaching and one serious suitor already gone. Selling clubs lose leverage quickly in that scenario.
The comparison inside Chelsea's own squad is instructive. They paid £17million for Mike Penders from Genk — more than double what they are paying for Martinez — for a 21-year-old with one season of senior European football behind him.
| Goalkeeper | How they arrived | 2025-26 |
|---|---|---|
| Robert Sanchez | Brighton, 2023 | 50 apps, 4,844 minutes, 15 clean sheets |
| Filip Jorgensen | — | 12 apps, 1,074 minutes, 1 clean sheet |
| Mike Penders | Genk, £17m | On loan at Strasbourg |
| Emiliano Martinez | Aston Villa, £7.5m (agreed) | 256 Villa appearances since 2020; Europa League winner |
Chelsea appearance and minutes figures are the club's own 2025-26 season review; Martinez's total covers his full Villa career.
The contract structure matters as much as the fee. Two years plus an option is a stopgap, priced and dated like one. It buys Chelsea coverage through Penders' development window without committing to a goalkeeper who will be 36 when the guaranteed term expires.
Villa's long goodbye: Juventus, Suzuki and a week of solo training
Martinez made 256 appearances for Villa after joining from Arsenal in September 2020, and last season was the peak of it: a fourth-place finish, Champions League qualification and the Europa League, the final against Freiburg ending with him carrying Unai Emery on his shoulders. That is likely to stand as his last Villa appearance.
The exit has been coming for over a year. He made clear last summer that he wanted to leave, and waited on a deadline-day call from Manchester United that never came. He then repaired the relationship, played a full season, and pushed again this summer.
Villa's own position moved with him. Emery still rated him as the best goalkeeper in the world, and the club told the representatives of other goalkeeping targets that they expected him to stay. When Martinez started talking to Juventus, Villa changed course and signed Suzuki.
Then the Juventus move collapsed over concerns about a finger injury. Juventus took Tottenham's Guglielmo Vicario on loan instead, and Villa were left with two No 1s in one dressing room. Martinez has trained alone at Bodymoor Heath for the past week while a solution was found.
Villa have not stopped working. Leon Goretzka joined on a free after leaving Bayern Munich, where he made 312 appearances across eight seasons, and Nicolas Jackson — valued at around £65million — was completing a medical at Villa Park on Thursday to reunite with Emery.
Three goalkeepers, one shirt, and a deadline on Tuesday
Chelsea's problem now is arithmetic. Sanchez, Filip Jorgensen and Penders were already three senior goalkeepers before Martinez agreed terms.
Sanchez is not expected to accept losing the shirt, and sources cited by the Guardian believe he may need to be moved on before Tuesday night. Whether a suitable club exists at this stage of the window is unclear — and his 2025-26 record does not read like a player being discarded. He played 50 games, logged 4,844 minutes, kept 15 clean sheets, was voted PFA Fans' Player of the Month for November, became the first Chelsea goalkeeper since Petr Cech to register a Premier League assist, and had his display against Villa nominated for the Premier League's Goalkeeper Performance of the Season award.
That is the tension. Chelsea have replaced a goalkeeper who was shortlisted for a league award five months ago on the evidence of one bad night at Craven Cottage.
The counter-argument is a season, not a match. Chelsea finished 10th, went out of the Champions League in the last 16, lost the FA Cup final to Manchester City and exited the Carabao Cup at the semi-final stage. Their goalkeeping was a running theme through that campaign, including Jorgensen's error against Paris Saint-Germain in March that turned a 2-2 tie into a defeat. Supporter reaction to the Martinez deal has skewed positive largely on that history and on the low fee, rather than on any expectation of a long-term fix.
Penders is the third piece. He was Sanchez's back-up at Fulham, is in line to start Thursday's Carabao Cup tie against Luton Town, and is well regarded internally after last season's loan at Strasbourg. A loan move is now under consideration, which would leave Chelsea carrying two experienced keepers instead of three.
The rest of the window is still moving around it. Chelsea expect Manchester City to make an offer for Enzo Fernandez within 48 hours — the Argentine was left out against Luton, City missed an unofficial deadline at £120million, and Chelsea insist no contact has yet been made and that any sale happens on their terms. They have agreed a £40million deal for Atalanta defender Ahanor, sold Liam Delap to Nottingham Forest for £50million, and have been rebuffed over Bournemouth's Alex Scott and Crystal Palace's Adam Wharton, with Monaco's Lamine Camara among the alternatives.
Villa and Chelsea have now traded repeatedly across recent windows: Morgan Rogers to Stamford Bridge for a club-record £117million, Alejandro Garnacho to Villa on an initial loan last month, Jackson heading the same way this week, and Ian Maatsen and Omari Kellyman swapping in the accounting-driven deal of 2024.
Martinez is the latest name on that list, and the cheapest of the recent ones. What it settles is Villa's goalkeeping situation, cleanly. What it opens is Chelsea's — with four days to close it.
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