Unai Emery: No Good Relations Between Villa and Chelsea, It’s a Deal for Money

Unai Emery says there are no “good relations” between Aston Villa and Chelsea, even as the two clubs completed an eighth transfer between them in four years, after Argentina goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez joined Chelsea from Villa on Sunday.

Martinez’s move comes a week after Nicolas Jackson went the other way, from Chelsea to Villa, continuing a pattern of business between the two clubs that has no equal anywhere else in the Premier League. No two top-flight clubs have exchanged more players, on permanent or loan deals, over the past four years than Chelsea and Villa.

Emery, whose side lose their goalkeeper in the deal, did not try to dress up the relationship between the clubs as anything other than business. “Good relations?” he said. “They want to kill us and we want to kill them! We have good players and we can sign one player off them, it’s not a good relationship, it’s a deal for money and a deal for players.”

He was careful to separate his feelings about the business from his feelings about the players involved. “I am happy for Emiliano Martinez and Morgan Rogers,” Emery said, “and I know I am not happy for Chelsea.”

Eight Deals After a Takeover

The pattern of trading between the two clubs began after Chelsea’s American ownership group, BlueCo, took control at Stamford Bridge in 2022 and signed Carney Chukwuemeka from Villa for £20m that summer. Ian Maatsen moved to Villa for £37.5m, Omari Kellyman went the other way to Chelsea for £19m, and defender Axel Disasi arrived at Villa on a £5m loan. Those four deals, spread across different windows, set the tone for what followed.

This summer alone has produced four more. Morgan Rogers completed a £117m move to Chelsea, a British transfer record. Alejandro Garnacho joined Villa on loan with a conditional obligation to buy worth around £43m. Jackson then moved to Villa for £65m, before Martinez followed him through the door in the opposite direction.

From 2022 onward, Chelsea have paid Villa a combined £163.5m for players. Villa, in turn, have spent £102.5m on players arriving from Chelsea, including Disasi’s loan fee. That figure could climb to £150.5m should Garnacho’s loan become permanent, and Chelsea believe the conditions attached to that clause are easily reachable.

A History That Predates BlueCo

Chelsea and Villa have done business long before the current ownership era at Stamford Bridge. Tammy Abraham, Ross Barkley, Danny Drinkwater, Ryan Bertrand, Steve Sidwell and Andy Townsend have all moved between the two clubs in the Premier League era, while John Terry joined Villa after leaving Chelsea at the end of his playing career. What has changed is the scale and frequency of the recent dealings, which has not gone unnoticed elsewhere in the league.

A number of club executives have privately raised questions about the volume of transfers between the two clubs, at a time when both have had to manage domestic and European financial regulations closely. There is no suggestion either club has broken any rules, though Uefa retains the power to scrutinise transfers completed between the same two clubs within a 45-day period. Garnacho’s loan move to Villa came two days after Rogers signed for Chelsea, while Jackson’s permanent transfer went through 38 days after the Rogers deal. A timeline alone, however, is not evidence the deals were connected.

Where the Numbers Come From

Counting every permanent transfer and loan between Premier League clubs from the summer of 2022 onward, restricted to the 15 sides who have stayed in the top flight throughout that period, there is a tie at the top of the list. Chelsea have done eight deals with Villa, and another eight with Brighton. Newcastle United and Nottingham Forest are next on six apiece, followed by Arsenal and Chelsea on five. Chelsea feature in six of the ten busiest club pairings in the league, a reflection of the scale of squad turnover that followed BlueCo’s £4.25bn purchase, which ended Roman Abramovich’s 19-year ownership of the club.

Villa’s relationship with Chelsea has a more specific explanation behind it, too. Chelsea co-owner Behdad Eghbali and Villa owner Nassef Sawiris have built a close working relationship over several transfer windows, communicating directly on deals, including Rogers’ move to Stamford Bridge this summer. Chelsea did not have a clear run at signing Rogers, however. Arsenal also wanted him, and it was the player’s own decision that took him to west London rather than north London.

The Case for Buying English

There are broader reasons domestic transfers between Premier League clubs remain common, and money is usually the biggest factor. English clubs generally have greater spending power than most sides elsewhere in Europe, meaning another Premier League team is often among the few buyers capable of matching the fee and wage demands attached to a big-name departure. That makes domestic deals attractive when a club is trying to move on a high-value player, and signing from within the league also reduces uncertainty, with recruitment staff already familiar with a player’s performances at close range.

Villa can point to their own long-held interest in Jackson, who worked previously with Emery at Villarreal, as evidence their move for the striker was not simply a reaction to Chelsea’s activity. Chelsea, in turn, could argue their interest in Martinez was independent of any prior dealings with Villa and would have been pursued regardless of which club he played for. The goalkeeper had also attracted interest from Juventus earlier in the window, a move understood to have been scuppered by a finger injury.

A Goalkeeper Change Forced by Two Errors

Chelsea agreed a cut-price £7.5m fee for the 33-year-old, a fraction of the sums involved in the Rogers and Jackson deals, but the move carries outsized consequences for the goalkeeping department at Stamford Bridge. Head coach Xabi Alonso had previously said he was content with his options between the posts, including Robert Sanchez and understudy Mike Penders, before two high-profile errors from Sanchez in a 3-2 win over Fulham changed his mind. Chelsea moved quickly to agree the deal in the days that followed, with Martinez expected to become the club’s first-choice goalkeeper.

Former Premier League goalkeeper Shaka Hislop, speaking to ESPN FC, dismissed suggestions that statistical comparisons between the two goalkeepers left little to choose between them. “You need somebody with a presence and Emi Martinez without question has that,” Hislop said. “He’s very good with the ball at his feet and I think he ticks a lot of boxes for Chelsea. Emi Martinez is an upgrade on Sanchez, those numbers cover up the cracks and the truth. Emi Martinez is a far better goalkeeper. You have Emi Martinez, even at this stage of his career, ten times out of ten over Sanchez. It’s not even a discussion.”

Former Chelsea defender Frank Leboeuf went further, arguing that Sanchez’s uneven form has damaged confidence throughout the Chelsea back line. “You have to put the percentage of trust defenders had last season in Martinez and the trust centre backs had in Sanchez. That I will give you a right number,” Leboeuf said. “I’m pretty sure Aston Villa had 100% trust in Emi Martinez and I give you 10% confidence of any centre back that played for Chelsea. Those are the right numbers. It’s crucial that if you have a goalkeeper that you trust behind you, you can give 100%. If you don’t trust you are going to have to be alert to everything and hesitate on every single decision you have to make.”

What Villa Are Losing, and Gaining

Martinez’s Villa career included two Europa Conference League campaigns and a run to the Champions League knockout rounds, and his departure leaves Emery needing a new senior option between the posts as his side try to push into Europe again this season. He arrived at Villa Park in 2020 as a relatively unheralded understudy at Arsenal and left as a World Cup winner with Argentina, one of the most significant signings in the club’s recent history measured by pure value gained against the fee paid.

Martinez played every minute of Argentina’s run to this summer’s World Cup final, part of the same squad that fell 1-0 to Spain in the showpiece match. Along with captain Lionel Messi, he has been the subject of his own retirement speculation in the weeks after that defeat, and his club future is now settled at Chelsea just as questions continue over how much longer he intends to represent his country at international level.

Villa’s attack, meanwhile, has already been reshaped once this window by departures elsewhere: Ollie Watkins completed his own move to Saudi side Al-Hilal earlier this week after six years at the club. Jackson’s arrival from Chelsea gives Emery a like-for-like forward option to help fill that gap, even as the goalkeeping position now needs fresh attention of its own. Whether the volume of transfers between the two clubs continues at the same pace beyond this window remains to be seen, but for now, as Emery made clear, warm feelings have nothing to do with why the deals keep happening.