Hoddle says Arsenal would be so much better if they had ‘brilliant’ £20m star in their team

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Glenn Hoddle has suggested that Arsenal would be so much better with Emiliano Martinez in their team, on the Glenn Hoddle Footy Show podcast.

Arsenal have shown signs of improvements of late, and have begun to climb the Premier League table.

The Gunners picked up an impressive 3-1 victory over Leicester City on Sunday afternoon, which earned them a lot of credit.

But Hoddle felt that Arsenal still didn’t exactly look water-tight at the back.

And Hoddle has claimed that if Martinez was behind their back four then Arteta’s side would be stronger.

“You still feel as if you can score against Arsenal. You still feel as if they are vulnerable at the back,” he said.

“While you’re like that I wonder how many Arsenal fans out there would wish that Martinez would have stayed at Arsenal, with him in goal behind that back four.

“He has been absolutely brilliant at Villa and there’s one for them that I think to myself, if they had him in goal there right now it would tighten them up a lot more.

“You just feel as if you can score against Arsenal. But in the same vein it’s almost as if you score two, we’ll score three ourselves and it’s entertaining football.”

Fair comments?

Martinez has certainly had an outstanding season since leaving Arsenal to join Villa in a £20 million deal (Guardian).

However, Bernd Leno has actually been fairly consistent in Arsenal’s goal and it is questionable just how much of a difference a different goalkeeper would have made this term.

Arsenal actually have the joint-fourth best defensive record in the Premier League this term, with only Manchester City, Chelsea and Aston Villa conceding fewer goals.