City land £41m Ake as Cherry picking begins
Arsenal keeper on his tough upbringing in Argentina
MANCHESTER City are poised to sign Nathan Ake after relegated Bournemouth accepted a £41million bid.
Just hours after Pep Guardiola’s side had agreed a £21m deal for Valencia winger Ferran Torres,
MailOnline broke the news of the deal for the Holland central defender yesterday. Agreeing personal terms will be a formality, with the former Chelsea player expected to sign a five-year contract and net a major pay increase on his current £40,000 a week.
Chelsea have first refusal on Ake, which could have been activated with a £40m bid. But the Blues are yet to move, which paved the way for City to offer £1m more than the Stamford Bridge club’s release clause.
Chelsea have a time window to match the offer as part of the deal when they sold Ake but there is no indication they will.
Manchester United were also interested in the 25-year-old Dutchman, while Tottenham recruitment staff had discussed a potential move with manager Jose Mourinho.
The deal will be delayed because Ake is on a family holiday, meaning the formalities will not be completed until next week at the earliest.
EMILIANO Martinez can afford a smile now as he reflects on his journey from a tough upbringing and his family’s financial struggles to playing for Arsenal and starting in an FA Cup final.
‘Yeah, my family can watch the final in Argentina,’ he grins. ‘We can now afford to pay the bills!’
It was not always that way. ‘I’d seen my dad crying late at night because he could not pay the bills,’ Arsenal keeper Martinez recalls during an emotional, endearing and candid interview.
‘I remember the day that me and my brother ate and not my mum and dad. When I was living in Buenos Aires, I would only see them twice a month. When I travelled, they couldn’t afford the petrol to go and see me. So I know what they did for me to reach the top, where I am now.’
Due to lockdown restrictions Martinez, 27, has not seen his parents for a year. He fears it might be another 12 months before they are reunited, so inevitably there will be a tinge of sadness attached to the biggest day of his career.
‘As soon as I win, I would want to celebrate with my boy and my wife — that’s the circle of life. But yes, I wish my whole family was there,’ he said. ‘We came from a poor, poor family and for them to see me winning a trophy in front of 90,000 people and getting a medal would be something.
‘For my Champions League debut against Anderlecht, my dad flew 27 hours to reach that game and he was crying all 90 minutes. It will be tough but I’ll be thinking about them when I play.’
Martinez was thinking about his family when he decided to leave Argentina for Arsenal. He recalls being ‘scared’ coming over for his trial aged 16 and thinking: ‘There was no way I was going to leave my family.’
When the call about the outcome came a week after his trial, he says: ‘I saw my brother and mum crying, saying, “Please don’t go!”’ Then he remembered his dad’s tears. ‘I had to be brave at the time, because I said “Yes” for them.’ Plenty of patience has been required since then.
Martinez was not eligible to play professionally until he was 18 because he did not have a European passport. He also had to deal with learning a language during his ‘tricky’ settling in period.
‘I said to my mum when I turned 18 and moved into my first flat in Enfield, “I don’t want to come back to my country with nothing. I want to make a career here”. I did not want to let them down.’
Martinez finally sampled senior English football at Oxford United in 2012 before further loans at Sheffield Wednesday, Rotherham, Wolves, Getafe and Reading, the stint he vowed would be his last.
Former Arsenal boss Unai Emery assured him last summer that he would have the chance to fight for the No1 spot and Martinez became a cup regular. But it was under Mikel Arteta, after Bernd Leno’s knee injury, that the door to the first team opened.
Despite the frustration he felt while on loan, his belief he could be Arsenal’s No 1 never wavered. He says: ‘My wife was saying to me in lockdown, “Why do you train so much?” Because I thought I might have my chance, I might do it. And look, I have it. When Bernd got injured at Brighton, straight after that I had to make a lot of saves. And I made it look easy because I was confident I had done the right thing to prepare for each game.’
Martinez’s home fitness and training sessions, using a full size goal and ball launcher in his garden, with help from wife Mandinha and two-year-old son Santi, paid off. He has been one of Arsenal’s stand-out performers since the restart, impressing with his reflexes, handling and comfort on the ball — contributing to their 18-pass semi-final goal against Manchester City.
‘I used to play up front so I always had the ability to play with the ball, even though I am 6ft 4in,’ Martinez says. ‘I remember my dad always saying to me, “If you want to be a professional player, you need to use both feet”.
‘I was left-footed when I was very young and then got an injury on my left ankle so I started kicking with my right foot.’
Arteta will have a decision to make over his goalkeeper next season, with Martinez insisting: ‘I never accepted I’m a back-up keeper.’ He may have started that duel this season as the secondchoice but insists: ‘I like to be the underdog, to surprise everyone.’
After all he has been through to reach this point, it is no wonder he backs himself.
3 Martinez kept clean sheets in each of his first three Premier League games this season. It took Gunners No 1 Bernd Leno 18 games to record his third shutout in 2019-20.