Arsenal have completed a deal to sign Independiente’s 16-year-old goalkeeper Damián Martínez for a fee of £1.3 million following a trial in May.
The Argentina Under 17 number one is regarded by his country’s coaching staff as one of the most promising young stoppers in recent years, and subsequently the national team’s goalkeeping coach Miguel Angel Santoro joined Damián in North London during his one week stay.
Steve Rowley’s trusted Brazil based scout Sandro Orlandelli is believed to have spotted the agile ‘keeper in action, and the Gunners moved quickly to secure his services even before the trial was completed. A $2 million (£1.3 million) incentive based contract was thrashed out and Arsenal have now decided to ‘give the green light’ and snap him up.
Martínez was in London this weekend to watch the Emirates Cup before putting pen to paper yesterday afternoon. Executive Richard Law was present and its believed that he will now attempt to orchestrate a loan move to UD Salamanca ahead of the new campaign.
By the way, for all of you who are planning on making bets ahead of the new campaign, my tip if to check out Online Sports Betting.
More to follow.
Article By – J.Sanderson
I really cant fucking believe this shit. What is behind this sick policy of arsenal??? We only sign central defenders and goalkeepers and putting them on a pile. Now we have 10 people fighting for the CB position in the arsenal U16s team, i just can`t believe it. Can`t we take advantage of the lack of good fullbacks in Europe and buy a talent or what???
Looks like the goalkeeper position will have some fierce competition in a few years.
‘ME’ wat r u talking about arsenal u16s theres such thing as reserves n u18s so i quite like wat arsemnal r doin last year der wasnt ennuf competition. n if u read the article it said goin on loan to salamanca
J – how would you describe the pecking order with our keepers in the youth setup… Shea, Martinez, Sean, Wojtech, Charlie Mann (if he hasnt moved on) – who do you think will be our u16 and u18 keepers this season ?
How are they getting around the fact they arn’t allowed to sign anyone outside the EU until they turn 18?
‘Too many’ good players is a problem many teams would envy.
1.4 milliom? And people think we have no money!!
@ FC. The rule is moot of the players’ family decide to “move” to the country of the team that buys him. Its a shame, but there you go.
FC – More than likely, the kid didn’t get a work permit, hence the reason Richard Law now has to try to broker a deal to Salamanca. He will have to spend 3 seasons in Spain in order to gain EU citizenship much the way Vela had to do.
*if the players’
Of course, what dizz states is also true.
It only applies if the parents are moving to the new country for non-footablling reasons. I wonder how they arrange it so the parents were just happening to move to London anyway :)
ussually arrange a job of some sort for the parents i think
J, whens the results of blogger idol?
@Wilshere obviously you haven`t heard of Steve Gatting, but yes I meant under 18, but there surely are the U16 and their coach is this man :D
why cant we sign a brazilian playmaker and send him to salamanca instead of defensive players??
Pointless signing,hopefully this will mean we finally sell the hopeless Donkey Mannone.
hey isnt anyone upset that senderos is leaving???
i think he will have an absolute brilliant season for everton.
we need some wingers ffs.
Agreed Me, the policy can be sickening. The down side is a fierce rivalry for places that may not help the team spirit and some players who due to some ‘x’ factor didnt perform for us may do so somewhere else or at a later stage in their career; but every team involved in youth policy system like ours experiences same thing. The advantage of this system however, is that there will be no redundancy in the ranks; the best stays;the average walks just like the club did with 8(?) members of the youth /reserve team last month.And with stiff competition, we are at least assured that ONLY THE BEST like Wilshere,Merida, Walcott, etc can make it thru to the first team. We are sad today cos we fans want a trophy to ease growing frustration but looking on the bright side(which is always the better side) we are sure that at some time in the nearest future, many more Arshavins, Fabregas, Vieira, Pires, Wright, Tony Adams, etc will come thru and with a few additons, some of the players who would have been together for about six to seven years of playing consistently, will rule Europe and even he rest of the world!
We are running out of time for buying matured players so that we can have that as our priority one. Still have some hope in Wenger in buying atleast a player but to me I wanted some two good players at defensive position to tackle European football well. I have some hope in the current players if they can only avoid too much of last season’s injurry.
But for crying out loud, we arent buying youngster just so our U-18 team will win every game, we are buying them because we think they can make it into the first team in a couple of years.
Didn’t we sign some world beating Irish goal keeper a few months back!?
Arse&Nose: yes, but two world beaters is better than one!
but there is only one place in goal, and at a young age you want your players to be gaining experience not sitting on the bench. I don’t see how mcdermot and this argentian are going to play in the same team?
You have to realize that not all the youngsters we sign will make it to the first team. Some will but also other will make us a nice little profit. We save these young guys careers because they could be wasted in a real madrid youth academy or something so the more the better. I want to know about that young Montenegro kid and the kid from fluminense.
for every 20 world beating 16 year olds you’ll be lucky to get one world beating pro – so the more the merrier at this level
for real i feel arsenal actually pan your life for you teams like real madrid will jus release you but arsenal keep you and help you find a team. e.g dunne, ogogo, im proud of the players that
if u think abwt it which player thats left arsenal has become a goood player consider their age, upson done good but hes 30 years old lol this is why arsene wenger is the best manager in the world.
J, is there any news on Veljko Batrović, you mentioned that his agent said that he was almost certain to sign in the coming weeks but that was a couple of weeks ago, any more news?
he wont be competing for a place because he’ll be in spain for 3 years! so it makes no difference to the current keepers
FIFA are making awful rules.
We are allowing millions of illegal Immigrants into Britain but cant let somebody with a legitimate reason enter and get a work permit?
any news about wellington
1.3 million on a 16 year old goalkeeper……?
Why didn’t James Shea move on instead of Charlie Mann. It seemed that Mann was more highly rated and James will clearly not have a chance against McDermott, Martinez and Sczeczny. This situation is getting pretty interested. Tech9 is so very highly rated and now we have two players, 3 years his junior, brought in a high profile transfer. So we actually have 3 teenage youth international GK at the club plus one international keeper. Interestingly, our No. 1 and No. 3 have never gained international honours.
And now our shopping basket for this summer looks like this:
2 pieces of highly rated 16 year old stoppers
3 pieces of Swiss defenders
1 piece of an English DM/CB
Hopefully we will add a Brazilian wonderkid to this mix.
Js any news on baraite and simpson will they be sold? Barazite must be pissed off sanchez watt got onto the bench on saturday and sunday. Any news on whos going? ALso is Henri Lanbsury going on loan i really do think lansbury will make it at arsenal hes a better player than merida in my opinion hes scores goals and is more direct
Did someone say my name? I’m hoping that we’ll see ‘Wellington signs for Arsenal’ headlines soon so that I can put them on the wall in my study! Apart from that he looks like a pretty decent player as well…
Good questions John. Would love to know the situations of Barazite and Simpson.
Okay, 16-year old Argentinian signed. But how about this evenings Boreham-game??? Still nothing about it, and it’s already started???
guys whats the lineup for today’s match??
I saw today that Wojo has been promoted to the first team squad.So thats one less keeper in are reserve system
not neccesarily
anyone can give some info about Boreham-game?
Wojo (good nickname DN) might still play the reserve games, I guess. My feeling is that McDermott will soon be the U-18 No. 1, Martinez will be loaned out, Shea will leave after the season. Wojo will play reserves for this year while Fabiansky will be the Cup keeper and Mannone surely must be loaned out or he will not play at all. Wojo is too old for the U-18 and he needs some games so we can’t let Mannone steal any reserves games from him. Four GKs is too much, one of them has to be loaned out, either Wojo or Mannone.
Is good to have many goalkeeperr @ that age, it wil bring more competitiom in the team when there time comes
i hate wenger for what he has done to chamalk.a player left is club jus for babys lke arsenal,and wenger decided to turn him down thats on fair to any body.
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How tall is he?
Still growing too obviously.
Gk’s and CB’s we seem to have an abundance. Good to see our scouts and youth (unlike Chelsea for example) are still working hard.
I agree though that we haven’t got for example a good youth RB coming through. Eastmond and Hoyte will not make it. Also like to see one stylish young winger with pace and flair. Just be nice to see an attacking Brazilian for once instead of defensive. We might as well use this Salamanca link to our advantage.
Js any news on Federico Fazio i think he would be one of the best signings arsenal will get. I really rate this kid very highly. Hes like ferdinand and vidic mixed together. Hes very strong and agressive but very composed at the same time and has got pace as well
He is highly-rated teenage goalkeeper.
What’s going on with Blog Idol please mate?
Does anyone think Mannone will make it? Honestly I can’t see it, but he is only 21 right? Fabianksi has a couple years on him. Personally I wonder if he was being put in the shot window during the Emirates.
This is a good signing but Arsenal still lacks quality strikers. The Emirates Cup match against Atletico showed this fatal flaw.
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wtf!!! why we kept continues to find a youth plyr?? we should pay more attention on our 1st team plyrs..but for me this is a good signing..plz focus on our squad!! i mean 1st 11..
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Charlie Mann moved on because he wanted to play, that apparently was the one and only reason, looks like he did the right thing and looks like some others may have to do the same thing. No point being highly rated sitting on the bench. Good Luck to him.
where did Charlie Mann move to?
thanks for the opportunity given to comment, I visited another opportunity again
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Martinez la ROMPE… Almunnia suplente, la tienen adentro ustedes!
Martinez es un excelente jugador.. Surgido de las mejores inferiores del futbol argentino!
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