YOU CAN’T STOP US!

Premier crisis as players defy ban to f ly off for World Cup ties

THE Premier League’s Argentinian players are set to defy orders not to travel on international duty in a remarkable split between club and country.

Villa keeper Emi Martinez last night confirmed he was travelling to play despite the Premier League’s refusal to release players and manager Dean Smith urging him to stay.

And the club’s £33million record signing Emi Buendia is expected to follow suit. Sources close to the Argentinian FA have told The Mail on Sunday they are confident Tottenham duo Giovani Lo Celso and Cristian Romero will also join up with the squad for the World Cup qualifiers against Venezuela, Brazil and Bolivia. It’s an extraordinary show of rebellion from two star players after the Premier League announced last week that those who faced quarantine for playing in red-list countries would not be allowed to play for their national team unless they were granted exemptions.

Argentina are on the red list so they would have to quarantine in a government hotel for 10 days on their return, ruling them out of two rounds of league fixtures against Chelsea and Everton with potentially more on top of that as they would need to regain fitness.

Buendia scored his first goal for Villa in a 1-1 draw with Brentford yesterday and manager Smith said: ‘I don’t know [if they will travel]. We have sat down with them and told them the Premier League are banning players going to Argentina, so we’ve told them we don’t want them to go out.’

Last night Martinez tweeted: ‘A hard-fought point this afternoon, now on to...’ followed by an emoji of the Argentina flag.