Almunia Hits Back At Lehmann

Manuel Almunia has finally struck back in the war of the goalkeepers with some truly vicious words.

Forgetting for a moment the differences in styles and abilities between the Spanish Almunia and the Mad German, the difference in their personalities could not be anymore contrasting either.

Jens Lehmann, who had been quiet of late, returned to type this week and further expressed his anger at been benched by Wenger for ‘someone who didn’t start playing football until he was 30’.

Almunia spoke strongly about Lehmann’s childishness.

‘I’m an easy-going person,’ he said. ‘I like to treat everyone with respect and I see everyone as equals. I treat people the way I would like to be treated myself.

‘To have someone here who hates me is just amazing. I know he hates me.

‘Every morning I wake up I know it is going to be the same. I’ve had to put up with it every day since he was out of the team and even before then. I wake up and I know what it is going to be like.

‘But I don’t care about him any more. He can say what he likes. I come into training and I work with Lukasz Fabianski and Vito Mannone. They are better goalkeepers than him anyway.’

‘It’s his problem, not mine, and I don’t see why I should try to talk to him about it. The truth is I don’t want to talk to him. I came into training this morning and one of the press officers told me he had been saying bad things about me in the newspapers again. It didn’t surprise me.

‘The truth is I have got used to reading these things from him. If he was someone important to me, I would try to talk to him and see what the problem is. But he’s not. So we don’t talk.

‘I’ve never been in a situation like this before in my career. Normally we goalkeepers have so much respect for each other.

‘Why he doesn’t respect me, I don’t know. But I don’t want any relationship with him. I try not to let what he says enter my mind because it’s not important to me what he says or what he thinks.’

Well …… that should stoke the fires nicely!!!