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EPL The international break is never particularly appealing — unless you are Emiliano Martinez. Flying back to Argentina is a huge source of pride. He is the nation’s magnetic goalkeeper — a leader, a World Cup winner and a modern-day legend. Led by Lionel Messi, Argentina’s setup is where Martinez feels most at home, with people who understand him. Advertisement This international break, though, may be welcomed more than any other. It has given him nearly two weeks of respite from his strained situation at Aston Villa. On September 1, transfer deadline day, he sat at Villa’s training ground waiting for a call from Manchester United that never arrived. Staff were surprised to see him, considering he was due to fly to Argentina later in the day. Even when morning became afternoon and it was evident United were instead pursuing Senne Lammens from Royal Antwerp, Martinez had not lost hope. Martinez stayed at Villa in the end, but scars and schisms have deepened. The episode has been described as “awkward” by sources, who, like others in this piece, have spoken on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships. This was amplified by Villa having to, as is the rule for all player birthdays, wish Martinez a happy 33rd birthday on the club’s social media accounts the next day. Sources close to Martinez and Villa have told The Athletic the plan is for him to be available for selection after Marco Bizot was in goal for the 3-0 home defeat against Crystal Palace. Villa want to repair bridges, yet do not know how Martinez will respond once he returns. Those close to Martinez say he will have no issue but is required to get over the disappointment and the embarrassment of failing to secure a move. “Emi is fine, ” Argentina manager Lionel Scaloni told reporters last week. “His transfer didn’t happen, but yesterday was his birthday and I saw him happy. Of course, he must have been excited about the idea of playing for Manchester United, as people have said, but he’s a positive kid. He’s already focused on us. When he returns to his club, he’ll be focused on them. ” The Athletic spoke to players and managers to determine how best to reintegrate a player who was looking to leave a club. Martinez’s future was a topic of discussion within the dressing room throughout the summer. It was an open secret that he wanted to leave, telling team-mates and staff alike he was moving. Advertisement “The closest similarity was when our star player wanted to leave, ” an experienced former Premier League and international manager tells The Athletic. “We didn’t have any issues or arguments. I just had other players coming to my office and asking ‘What’s happening with this player? He’s become a little bit quiet. ’ “I decided we had to stop it and I couldn’t reintegrate him. I called a press conference together with the club and decided he would go. ” “While it’s a terrible look, for Emi with the fans, (manager) Unai Emery and for the club ambition-wise, it’s not great that an important player wanted to desperately leave for another club who aren’t even in Europe, ” a senior recruitment figure at a Premier League competitor tells The Athletic. “Some boundaries have been crossed that are not in keeping with the last couple of seasons under Unai. “But he will play again immediately. Football is a fickle industry and he is clearly better than Marco Bizot, so it suits no one if he isn’t playing. How long he will now stick around for is anyone’s guess. ” Martinez’s situation was indicative of a broader theme of the summer. Power has shifted towards players. Missing training sessions, remaining absent and embracing a stand-off forced notable transfers, such as Yoanne Wissa’s move from Brentford to Newcastle United and Alexander Isak’s sale from Newcastle to Liverpool. “When I was a player, it was different, ” says the former Premier League manager. “You didn’t have that many media platforms. Now you can’t hide anything. It’s minute-by-minute news. If you take the situation with Isak, news was coming on an hourly basis, not daily. “Before, players had a desire to leave, but it was done differently and behind the scenes. Now, if a player wants to leave, they will likely go, because the club’s afraid of causing a bigger rift. ” Advertisement Isak is represented by the agency Universal Twenty Two, which also has an agent who looks after Martinez. Other figures naturally become involved when negotiations grow this arduous, with Martinez enlisting the help of the ‘superagent’ Jorge Mendes in the summer to facilitate a transfer. “The Martinez story was quite quick, ” says the former Premier League manager. “The problem is (Newcastle head coach) Eddie Howe had the Isak story throughout the summer. The difference now, though, is Emery still has Martinez and will have to deal with that. ” Close observers believe Martinez will need to show remorse to be accepted back into the fold. He faces a tough task to win over supporters. Other people close to the dressing room, however, are delighted that Martinez stayed. Despite a drop-off in performances in the previous campaign, his quality is indisputable. Last year, he won his second Yashin Trophy, awarded to the world’s best goalkeeper. The forlorn trudge back home is a path well-trodden. History suggests players who have failed to secure a move either return with bitterness or regret. The archetypal example remains former West Bromwich Albion attacker, Peter Odemwingie, following that interview in January 2013. The ultimate tale of woe and schadenfreude is well told but still astonishing, even 12 years later. Odemwingie handed in a transfer request (which was rejected) and, like Martinez, said goodbye to his team-mates, promising to take them out for a meal to say thank you. So on January’s deadline day, Odemwingie drove down to London to sign for Queens Park Rangers. His Range Rover, parked outside the club’s Lotfus Road stadium, was not allowed in. This did not stop the forward, who gave Sky Sports an interview, telling them he expected a deal would be finalised and West Brom would be “happy with what they will get” in return. Advertisement The move never happened, as neither club could agree on a price. Four hours sat in the car park had been entirely futile and, more acutely, Odemwingie had to return to West Brom with his tail firmly between his legs. “I’ve had probably the worst four months of my whole life, ” Odemwingie told The Athletic’s Gregg Evans four months later. “We agreed not to talk about the (January) 31st again, but my question is: why don’t you want to talk about the 31st? ” Odemwingie apologised to team-mates, yet the damage was done. He was fined two weeks’ wages for “wholly unprofessional” behaviour, fans booed him and, having accused the club of trying to ruin his career, he was never fully reintegrated. He did not make another start before being sold to Cardiff City in the summer. There are other instances. Some humorous, others forlorn. Joshua King’s failure to secure a move to Manchester United from Bournemouth in 2020 was wounding. Pierre van Hooijdonk went on strike at Nottingham Forest in the 1998-99 campaign due to the total belief that another club was going to buy him. No one did. Van Hooijdonk slunked back to Forest after a prolonged act of truancy. The striker would play and score again, though very few team-mates celebrated his goals. “If you see him walking a bit funny, you’ll know where we’ve shoved his olive branch, ” said Dave Bassett, his manager at the time.

The one time Virgil van Dijk suffered a sustained dip in form was in the final six months at Southampton after being denied a move to Liverpool in the summer of 2017. This was becoming the era of Instagram captions and posts, so Van Dijk uploaded a pensive photo of himself looking outside the window of a private jet, as if he was dreaming of the River Mersey below him.     A post shared by Virgil (@virgilvandijk) “We’d never received an offer from Liverpool in that summer, ” says Les Reed, Southampton’s former vice chairman and current board adviser at Wrexham. “So Virgil was under the impression that we turned down offers when we’d never received one. Advertisement “Virgil was very aware that Liverpool wanted him. He had changed his agent and his agent was very aware that Liverpool wanted him. ” Van Dijk would return to the south coast for half a season and under incoming manager Mauricio Pellegrino. “The coach had to select a team that he felt was best placed to win games, ” says Reed, “and on several occasions, felt that Virgil’s mind probably wasn’t in the right place. “You had the issue of other players not knowing what’s going on inside the club, reading things from the press, talking to their own agents. It’s not a healthy position to be in. ” When Liverpool did formalise their interest before the January window, Southampton had no qualms in selling their captain midway through the campaign. Receiving a world-record fee for a defender was persuasive, but the sale allowed Southampton to draw a line under the episode. Pellegrino no longer had to spend every interview discussing Van Dijk. “What I found frustrating was that you can’t say the whole truth, when there is still a chance that the player will stay, or the club is trying to get a bigger transfer fee, ” says the ex-Premier League manager. “You have to play the game a little bit. ” Emery will have to front questions on his goalkeeper at his next press conference and seek a contrasting tone to the clear frustration he held following the defeat to Palace, when he acknowledged the uncertainty had not helped the squad. It is nearly five years since Martinez signed for Villa. The anniversary — September 16 — will either be marked publicly or posted awkwardly on the club’s social media accounts, akin to his birthday wishes. This is a tricky, conflicting period. Martinez has been a transformative figure, forming the spine of the Emery era. Adored by his supporters and loved to be hated by all those outside of Villa or Argentina, Martinez faces a battle to regain favour. “These are decisions made by club directors, ” Martinez’s brother, Alejandro, told DSports Radio last week. “It (United) didn’t happen, but it’s like everything commercial. The sporting aspect was left aside, and everything is fine. Advertisement “Emi never had an argument with Unai. It was all left to the directors, and the clubs couldn’t agree. “They (Villa) told me that Emi gave a lot as a professional and as a person. They love him, and it showed on the field. He’s beloved, and the management didn’t want to sell him because he’s a key player for the team and another team wanted him. It was that trade dispute. ” Many supporters will affirm they will not forgive or forget, yet football is transient, a fickle old game. “Emery knows best, ” says the former Premier League manager. “He knows what happened, what was happening in the dressing room. Is he going to lose his place as the No 1? Emery has all the information from him, his staff and also from other experienced players. ” Ideally, it will only take one quintessential Martinez performance to win over the sceptics. A change of behaviour and a focused mind will ease any potential doubts in Emery and his aides’ minds about playing Martinez. “The key conversation is the manager and the player, ” adds Reed. “Most managers, Emery would be one, will aim to sit the player down and put everything that’s gone on behind them and say, ‘We can’t affect the past, but we can affect the future’. ” (Top photo: Richard Pelham/Getty Images) Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle Jacob is a football reporter covering Aston Villa for The Athletic. Previously, he followed Southampton FC for The Athletic after spending three years writing about south coast football, working as a sports journalist for Reach PLC. In 2021, he was awarded the Football Writers' Association Student Football Writer of the Year. Follow Jacob on Twitter @J_Tanswell