“Antolin and Phil had created a very strong partnership in the previous two games and after keeping a clean sheet against Newcastle there is no need to dislodge that.
“Second, since he had the virus John has not played any football so it would be a major, major risk to throw him into a game of that intensity with the last experience he had away from home in Europe when he got sent off.
“It was important to have continuity in the back four that kept a clean sheet on Sunday and that is the reason.”
Martinez added: “Antolin had to deal with too many actions that we, as a team, didn’t stop well enough on Thursday night.
“I don’t think defensively he had a poor game, I think as a team we put our defence and keeper under immense pressure because our defensive performance as a team wasn’t up to standard.”
Is he serious?! Every reason he has given for Alcaraz being in the team could have been applied to Robles over Howard!
The man can't keep a track of all the bollocks he talks.