The Chelsea goalkeeper is recovering from an operation, an update the club's medical staff said they would expand on after Friday's lunchtime semi-final.
Chelsea confirmed Emiliano Martinez will return from an operation in a few weeks, on a sticky note left on a car park bench. The club's medical staff are focused on the lunchtime five-a-side semi-final. A pundit says the Groundstaff keeper is the real story.
"...and if we lose the toss on the sloped end we are finished, done, and nobody in this building will be talking about a goalkeeper," said Chelsea senior physio Dermot Faulkner-Oyelaran on Friday. He was pacing a car park pitch marked out in traffic cones behind the West Stand.
Faulkner-Oyelaran was explaining why Chelsea announced Emiliano Martinez's return from an operation on a sticky note taped to a bench. The goalkeeper was hurt in the win at Everton and says he will be fit in a few weeks. The note said much the same in nine words. Then the medical department jogged back onto the tarmac.
Chelsea's Friday lunchtime staff five-a-side has reached its semi-final. Three sides remain: Physio and Sports Science, Ticketing, and a Groundstaff team that has not conceded since September. A knee is a knee. A semi-final on tarmac with a lamppost in the attacking third is war.
The club has reorganised its injury communication around that reality. Three members of staff now handle first-team medical updates. All three play for Physio and Sports Science. Two are suspended for the semi after a studs-up challenge by the recycling bins that referee Clive, a matchday steward, called "a red in any league on earth."
Chelsea communications lead Priya Bellingham-Stroud defended the sticky note as a full statement. "We put out the goalkeeper line. He's fine. He said so himself," she said. "What people need to grasp is that Ticketing have brought in a ringer from the club shop. Sunday league in Croydon. We have no scouting on him. None."
"A knee is a knee. A semi-final on tarmac with a lamppost in the attacking third is war."
Martinez's operation itself drew limited attention inside the building. Faulkner-Oyelaran confirmed it went well, then asked whether anyone had seen the spare bibs. The BBC's report on the goalkeeper's recovery ran to several paragraphs. The club considers that generous.
The Groundstaff problem
Pundits have backed the club's priorities. "I watched the Martinez clip from Goodison once," said Sky Sports analyst Trent Mabbutt. "I've watched the Groundstaff keeper's double save against Ticketing nineteen times. Stone-cold. Steel-spined. That is a goalkeeper, and he mows for a living."
Mabbutt added that the Groundstaff side plays a hard, full-blooded 2-1-1 and knows every slope in the car park. "They painted those bays," he said. "They know which drain the ball dies on. You cannot coach that. You can only lose to it."
Everton, for their part, were not asked about Martinez. A club official said the question had come in but was ranked below a staff darts dispute at Finch Farm, now in its third week of arbitration.
The five-a-side final is set for Friday week. Kick-off has been moved back a quarter of an hour so an ambulance can get through if needed. Faulkner-Oyelaran said the ambulance is for the game. Martinez, the club confirmed, has been given the fixture list and told to rest.
