Manchester United completed negotiations for Senne Lammens on Sept. 1 after a summer in which Emiliano Mart\u00ednez\u2019s future remained unsettled. Mart\u00ednez had been linked with a move to Old Trafford and at one point appeared to bid farewell to Aston Villa supporters, but he stayed and has since spoken publicly about that decision.<\/p>\n
The Argentine\u2019s status was uncertain when the new season began in August. His return was delayed after the opening day and he made his comeback in the following Villa match, only to be left out of the squad for a game played the day before the summer transfer deadline. United continued talks over Lammens and did not close that deal until Sept. 1, a timeline that allowed the club to keep options open.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes football can change, managers can come in and go. People move around the place, but it doesn’t mean that I [don\u2019t] have full respect and love for [Aston Villa],\u201d Mart\u00ednez told reporters ahead of this week\u2019s Europa League final in Istanbul.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a commitment with Aston Villa. I\u2019m a World Cup winner [with Argentina ] with Aston Villa. I won two [Best FIFA Men\u2019s Goalkeeper awards] with Aston Villa. I will always and forever love this club. One day I am going to retire and somebody else will be between the sticks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m in a European final, we are in Champions League [next season] again, with all the ups and downs. We\u2019ve got a top coach, we\u2019ve got a top captain, we have a decent core of the team and when we stick together and fight together, we can beat anybody.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really proud to stay. I made the right choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reports since have suggested United\u2019s then manager Ruben Amorim favoured Mart\u00ednez for his experience, while a rival view from inside the club recommended Lammens. That recommendation came from goalkeeping scout Tony Coton, who had tracked Lammens for six years through Belgium\u2019s youth teams, Club Brugge and a senior breakthrough with Royal Antwerp.<\/p>\n
Coton discussed his assessment on Manchester United\u2019s Inside Carrington podcast. \u201cI wanted to see his concentration levels if, when I\u2019m talking, he is looking elsewhere. Is he looking at the video still and this, that and the other?\u201d Coton said. \u201cAnd he was just locked. He was just locked onto me and I\u2019m thinking: \u2018Yeah, he\u2019s got a real focus.\u2019 And I\u2019d seen that in his game.<\/p>\n
\u201c[United] asked me could he go straight into the team and I said: \u2018Yes, straight away.\u2019 I had to say that anyway because I\u2019d recommended him!\u201d<\/p>\n
Mart\u00ednez, who became a top-flight starter at 28 after a decade as a backup at Arsenal, still has a contract with Aston Villa until the summer of 2029. He would be close to 37 by its expiry and will have spent nine years at Villa Park. In recent seasons Villa have gone deep in European competitions, qualified for the Champions League twice and come within a point of a second top-four Premier League finish in three years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How Manchester United chose Senne Lammens after internal scouting advice over Emiliano Mart\u00ednez 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13929,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[711,1083,1513],"tags":[1021,436,1324],"class_list":["post-13930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aston-villa","category-man-utd","category-man-utd-transfer-news","tag-amorim","tag-andre-onana","tag-best-fifa-awards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}