Spurs are reportedly searching for a new top class goalkeeper
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If the gossip columns are even half-right, then Tottenham Hotspur will be one of the Premier League’s busiest teams come January. Scarcely a day goes by without the club being linked with a new player, be it a striker, a winger, a midfielder – or, now, a goalkeeper.
A new report from The Daily Mail claims that Spurs are actively pursuing a deal for a “world-class goalkeeper” to replace Guglielmo Vicario, and even gives Aston Villa’s Emiliano Martínez as a player they might go after in 2026. But is that a deal they could really make – and do they really need a replacement for their current number one?
Why Spurs might want to replace Guglielmo Vicario this season
At first blush, Spurs’ interest in moving on from Vicario after just two full seasons may seem a little strange. While not necessarily regarded as one of the very best in the business, Vicario has scarcely been the club’s biggest problem since he joined in 2023 and is currently having a highly productive season between the sticks.
Vicario is currently operating at a towering 77.3% save percentage, the best of his top-flight career to date and the third highest mark in the Premier League behind only Sunderland’s Robin Roefs and Manchester City’s Gianluigi Donnarumma. Meanwhile, he’s prevented 3.7 goals compared to the number he ‘should’ have conceded according to the xG model – only Dean Henderson has prevented more. By any standards, his shot-stopping has been superb since the summer.
Shot stopping isn’t the only metric by which a goalkeeper is judged, however, and there are areas in which Vicario can be improved upon, with his handling of set pieces and high balls into the box chief among them.
Vicario has previously acknowledged his need to work on the way he deals with dead ball situations and while it’s an area in which Spurs have improved considerably since Thomas Frank took over (they have conceded just two league goals from set pieces so far), Vicario is still finding the high ball to be a problem.
So far this season, Vicario is credited with having directly stopped just five of the 134 crosses he’s had launched into his box – a success rate of just 3.7%, a worrying low mark. It’s been a persistent weakness for much of his career, with the 2024/25 season when he handled 9.7% of crosses (an above average mark for the top flight) a distinct outlier. For much of his career, he has lacked conviction against the high ball, and it’s a concern in an age in which set plays are becoming increasingly important.
Vicario’s distribution may be making Frank fret, too. While accurate over short distances – he has completed every single attempted pass of under 30 yards he has attempted this season – he isn’t at his best playing the ball over longer distances, and that’s something Frank wants him to be doing. Since Ange Postecoglou left the club, the number of long kicks Vicario has been asked to attempt has more than doubled and while he isn’t the worst in the league by any stretch, his success rate with long passes is more than 10% lower than that of Alisson, who sets the bar for the Premier League right now. There is room for improvement.
The bigger picture does not suggest that Spurs should be immediately worried about Vicario, and replacing should surely not be the club’s first priority, but there are clear-cut weaknesses in his game and those provide reason to believe that the club can do better. But would Emi Martínez really be the answer?
Why Aston Villa’s Martínez is not the solution to Spurs’ goalkeeper search
It should be noted from the start that The Daily Mail did not suggest that Spurs have made a direct approach for Martínez, or that he is necessarily their preferred target – but he is suggested as a possibility, and is the only player named in their report about the club’s transfer strategy.
Martínez has, undeniably, been among the best goalkeepers in the world in recent years, winning the Yashin Trophy twice as well as a World Cup and the Copa America – but there have been definite signs of decline since last summer, and Villa appear to be relatively keen to move on from him themselves, with recent reports suggesting that they’re open to offers a few months after they came close to selling him to Manchester United.
As is the case with Vicario, Martínez’s shot stopping is now the primary concern, but his stats are still worse than those of Spurs’ current number one this season and have, more disconcertingly, fallen away considerably since some very impressive peaks in 2023/24.
His work against the high ball has also dropped off. Between 2022 and 2024 his work in the air was exceptional but he has only dealt with around 7.8% of crosses this year – better than Vicario, admittedly, but down from a single season peak of 12.4% not long ago. To cap it off, Martínez is also not noted for the quality of his long-distance distribution.
At best, Martínez would be a slight improvement in the short term, and given that he is 33 and showing clear signs of decline it would be a rather idiosyncratic decision for Spurs to sign him – there are goalkeepers out there who are stronger in the areas of concern while being rather younger and in no apparent danger of dwindling in the immediate future.
A slightly more thorough search would surely yield better options – perhaps players like Cagliari’s Elia Caprile or Valencia’s Julen Agirrezabala, both 24 and fine shot stoppers who are also superb in the air, or SC Freiburg’s Noah Atubolu, a raw 23-year-old whose positional game needs work but whose distribution is impressive and whose reflexes are beyond question. Chelsea and Manchester United have been linked with the latter already.
Spurs have some reasons to believe that moving on from Vicario at some stage would be the right move, depending on the qualities they prioritise in their goalkeeper – but there are surely better options out there than Martínez, and probably bigger fish to fry in January.