Matt Maher: Can’t have too many good players? Let’s ask Chelsea
There was a moment quite early on during Wednesday’s live announcement of Emi Martinez’s new contract when the Villa goalkeeper felt the need to apologise.
“I’m sorry to anyone who bought my shirt with the No.1 on the back of it,” he said, referring to his decision to switch, for reasons of superstition, to the No.23 for the forthcoming campaign.
The comment was greeted with chuckles from those supporters inside the Villa Store, who had arrived for Wednesday’s signing event to find themselves in the middle of a breaking news story.
Yet you suspect for some, the rather late confirmation of Martinez’s number change will have been the cause of some grumbling.
Just as well, then, they do not support Chelsea, where it is not so much the numbers at risk of altering as the identity of the players wearing them.
Pedro Neto, for instance, will make his return to Molineux on Sunday with the No.7 on his back, just a week after making his debut for the London club wearing 19.
Confirmation of the Portugal international’s rapid promotion to single figures came with no mention of the man he has replaced in the shirt, Raheem Sterling, who in the space of a few days went from thinking he was a big part of the plans at Stamford Bridge to training in his own back garden.
