{"id":599671,"date":"2026-08-29T13:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T13:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/599671\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T13:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T13:26:11","slug":"you-need-somebody-with-a-presence-xabi-alonso-ruthlessly-axes-robert-sanchez-as-chelsea-agree-deal-for-emiliano-martinez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/599671\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;You need somebody with a presence&#8217; &#8211; Xabi Alonso ruthlessly axes Robert Sanchez as Chelsea agree deal for Emiliano Martinez"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Statistical comparisons from last season suggested little difference between Martinez and Sanchez, with the Argentine showing signs of wear and tear. However, former Premier League goalkeeper Shaka Hislop passionately dismissed those numbers. Speaking to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-affiliate-type=\"NONE\">ESPNFC<\/a>, Hislop stated that Martinez is an undeniable improvement. <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:start\">&#8220;You need somebody with a presence and Emi Martinez without question has that. He\u2019s very good with the ball at his feet and I think he ticks a lot of boxes for Chelsea,&#8221; Hislop explained.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:start\">&#8220;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\u2019s not even a discussion.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Statistical comparisons from last season suggested little difference between Martinez and Sanchez, with the Argentine showing signs of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[42659,4027,251140,85,46,2619,153364,105,9461,199699],"class_list":["post-599671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-aston-villa","tag-chelsea","tag-e-martinez","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-premier-league","tag-r-sanchez","tag-sports","tag-transfers","tag-x-alonso"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}