Emi Martinez says he has no regrets about staying at Aston Villa after being heavily linked with a move to Manchester United this time last year, insisting he made the right choice. Speaking ahead of the Europa League final, the Argentina goalkeeper said the summer noise never changed his commitment to Villa and that his future was shaped by respect for the club rather than the transfer talk around him.
United wanted to sign Martinez from Aston Villa last summer, with Ruben Amorim among those who pushed to bring him in, but the club never made an official offer. That left the 32-year-old in Birmingham, where he has since remained one of the key figures in a season that has again put Villa in the spotlight. United later changed their goalkeeper department at the start of the 2025/26 season, stripped Andre Onana of his first-choice duties and brought in Senne Lammens from Royal Antwerp. United fans using TalkingPoints have since voted Lammens their favourite signing of the summer, while the Belgian is now heading to the World Cup after being named in the Belgium squad.
Martinez said the decision to stay was straightforward once he had committed to the club. He said he is a World Cup winner with Aston Villa, that he won two Golden Gloves there and that he will “always and forever love” the side. He added that people move around, managers change and football shifts, but that did not mean he ever lacked respect or love for the club.
The timing matters because Villa are back on a big stage. They are due to face Freiburg in Istanbul on Wednesday night in the Europa League final, with a chance to win their first trophy in 30 years. Unai Emery, who has won the Europa League four times, has taken Villa to another defining moment and, by Martinez’s own reading, the club are moving in the right direction.
He said he is proud to have stayed and believes he made the right choice, pointing to a squad he feels can still go further. Martinez said Villa have a top coach, a top captain and a decent core, and that when they stick together and fight together they can beat anybody. He also framed the season as proof that leaving was never the only route to something bigger: “One day I am going to retire and somebody else will be between the sticks. I’m in a European final, we are in Champions League again, with all the ups and downs,” he said.
The tension in his story is plain. Martinez was close enough to a Manchester United move for the link to define a summer, yet the only reason he remained at Villa was that no official bid arrived. Now he is standing at the end of a season that has given him a European final, a return to the Champions League and a club with a shot at ending a 30-year wait for silverware. For Villa, that makes his decision more than a transfer what-if; it has become part of the club’s rise.
