Arsenal goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez: Relentless lockdown training paid off | OneFootball

Arsenal goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez has revealed how he trained relentlessly during lockdown in case he had a chance to start.

Sure enough, Bernd Leno went down with injury in June and Martinez was thrust into the number one role.

The Argentine has been excellent in Leno's absence, crediting his lockdown training regiment for keeping him prepared.

"You have to deal with frustration when you don't play, you have to deal with the pressure. There are no excuses," he told the club's website. "A second-choice goalkeeper can sometimes say, 'Oh, it's a lack of games, it's different when you train compared to when you play' but there is no excuse if you do everything right.

"My wife was saying to me in lockdown: 'Why do you train so much?' Because I thought I might have my chance, I might do it. And look, I have it. After two games I was already fitter than when I left.

"So when Bernd got injured at Brighton, if you see straight after that I had to make a lot of saves, and I made it look easy because I was confident I had done the right thing to prepare for each game.

"I have got a full-size goal in my garden," he added. "As soon as [lockdown] happened, the fitness coaches sent us a programme. We had a bike from a club to do training, obviously we could not go out anywhere.

"I had plenty of space. I had weights, a mini-gym outside. I was doing proper goalkeeper training. Normally as a keeper when you start training, if you have not been diving or hitting the ground for a long time, you might have bruises on your bones. That is something I have been doing since the lockdown so when I came back with the team I was feeling great."