Instinctive Emi Martinez madness sparks Forest v Villa into life yet quickly becomes irrelevant
Nottingham Forest v Aston Villa was mind-numbingly dull until one of the greatest saves you will ever see sparked it into life. Emiliano Martinez, you little dancer.
Forest’s Premier League match against Villa was nowhere near worthy of a write-up, but sometimes a single moment can be enough to influence over 700 words. That was the case here and it wasn’t a goal, a red card, a refereeing decision, but a genuinely world-class piece of goalkeeping that got us relentlessly typing.
Villa goalkeeper Emi Martinez has been one of the best in the world since moving to the Midlands, going from an Arsenal outcast to a World Cup winner and two-time Yashin Trophy winner, which is given to the best goalkeeper in the world every winter.
Martinez was being criticized for the first time in his Villans career, mainly for his worrying distribution. He was a shambles against Chelsea and had an error leading to a goal in the midweek Champions League victory at RB Leipzig. Someone of his consistency and importance is allowed a little slump and he has emphatically got himself out of it, giving a game desperate for a shot in the arm just that in the process.
Martinez made one of the most iconic saves in football history in the dying embers of the 2022 World Cup final, denying France’s Randal Kolo Muani. If context is relevant, it is the greatest save ever made. He made an equally as impressive one against Forest, though it was slightly less important.
Nicolas Dominguez was the unfortune Forest player whose jaw hit the ground watching his close-range header clawed onto and off the line. The noise in the City Ground made it sound like a goal had gone in – which made it even better.
While Forest were licking their wounds, Villa took the lead through another instinctive star in their team: Jhon Duran.
Duran might be the most clinical finisher in the Premier League and his instinctive nature in the box makes him a difference maker, this time giving Villa a lead that they eventually surrendered.
Chris Wood thought he had equalised but a lengthy VAR check concluded that Anthony Elanga was offside by a ball hair. Thankfully for the hosts, their second equaliser stood.
Of course, like clockwork, Martinez had a slight blunder for Nikola Milenkovic’s equaliser. It was a powerful header and from very close range but the Argentine looked like he is trying to catch the ball instead of parrying it to safety. He does chuck it in a bit, which was horrendously typical. At least the overriding point still stands: that save was the shot in the arm we craved.
Martinez’s world-class save was then completely meaningless when Elanga scored his first goal since February to give Forest an injury-time lead and ultimately down Unai Emery’s Aston Villa, triggering some very interesting conversations about how far Nuno Espirito Santo’s Nottingham Forest can go.
Their start to the season has been surprising and outstanding, dealing Liverpool their only defeat, which is looking less and less bizarre every passing week. Plenty of people had Nuno down as their first manager sacked in 2024/25 with Forest expected to find themselves in another relegation battle, but they will have enough points required to stay in the division by Christmas.
It is remarkable and beating another Champions League team begs the question: will Forest be on the beach as early as February or will they continue to push for Europe? The way they are going and with Newcastle United, Tottenham and Manchester United stuttering in the bottom half, they should aim for a Champions League place, and the Premier League could end up with five of them.
They are now above Manchester City, three ahead of Villa and impressing more than other high flyers Brighton, Bournemouth, Fulham and Brentford, as their league standing proves.
Nuno’s substitutions helped, especially the introduction of Anthony Elanga, but Martinez’s outrageous piece of goalkeeping is definitely the narrative we are running with. It can’t be a coincidence that the game was horrendous until then!
The final score unfortunately makes the save feel like a distant memory but it still happened and was the catalyst for one of the best endings to a Premier League match this season.
