Unai Emery is set to show faith in Robin Olsen this season, but the experienced shot-stopper has much yet to prove in an Aston Villa shirt.
The 33-year-old has 66 caps for Sweden, while he’s had spells at FC Copenhagen, Malmo, Roma, Everton and Sheffield United amongst others in a career that has seen him play regularly at a good level across Europe.
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However, in six appearances for Villa last season, the Swede conceded 14 goals, and while Emery was pleased with his performance in a 2-0 win over Tottenham, is that enough to go on to be confident about his ability to be a reliable back-up option to Emiliano Martinez?
On one hand, if Emery believes so, then who are we to disagree. The Villa boss sees Olsen in training every week, and he must feel as though he has the attributes to play an important role for us when needed and believes in his ability to improve and adapt to his demands.
Conversely, the proof was on show last season as not only did we concede a significant number of goals with Olsen between the posts, but there wasn’t the same sense of solidity at the back in terms of his organisation of the backline and his ability to sweep up behind them, command his area or accurately play the ball out.
While there have been signs of improvement over pre-season, the Swedish international has still shown a tendency to have a mistake in him, as we’ve seen him play a loose pass to put us in trouble on a few occasions.
However, with just days to go before the new Premier League campaign gets underway, it does indeed look like Olsen will be our No.2, and time will tell if that was the right decision.
“We have two international goalkeepers.” Emery said last week while on our USA pre-season tour, as per BirminghamLive. “Robin Olsen is playing last year with us less matches, but I think he played very well. I remember that match in Tottenham, 2-0 with him, and we have to use him and be ready because we are going to play a lot of matches.
“We have to play with a lot of players and with the goalkeepers we have to be ready to play with Emiliano, with Robin Olsen and, of course, if something is happening in the season we have to be ready with the young goalkeeper.”
The first thing to note is that Emiliano Martinez will want to play in as many games as possible this season. The World Cup winner is hungry for more success, and he won’t want to be left out at any point unless forced upon him due to injury or suspension.
In turn, we’ll likely see him play the majority of games, particularly in the Premier League and Europa Conference League, should we advance past the play-off round, while there is an argument in favour of him playing in the FA Cup too as we target silverware this season.
The Carabao Cup will undoubtedly be identified as a competition in which we can rest Martinez and start Olsen in his place, but whether Emery goes beyond that and gives the latter more playing time in the other cup competitions remains to be seen.
Ideally, Olsen will step in and build confidence early. That will settle everything around him, and our defensive performances as a unit will hopefully improve off the back of that.
Villa arguably still have work to do in adding cover beyond him, as with Viljami Sinisalo out on loan for the season, will Filip Marschall be given the responsibility of being third-choice goalkeeper?
That position along with the depth behind Ollie Watkins are perhaps two areas in which there will be slight concern ahead of a hectic campaign in which we could play in excess of 50 games. Emery has backed Olsen to deliver when called upon, and while there will be apprehension until he consistently proves he’s up to the task, we have to back him, get behind him and hope that he’ll play his part in a successful season.