Arsenal's
goalkeeper is ready to face United knowing his team-mate couldn't
think less of him
I'm an easy-going person," Manuel Almunia says. "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."
There can be only one goalkeeper in every team so it is to be
expected that the men fighting for that place occasionally clash.
In Holland, as a substitute goalkeeper at PSV Eindhoven, Ronald
Waterreus used to switch on the television in the middle of the
night to make sure his room-mate and rival, Georg Koch, slept badly
before games. David James will admit cold-shouldering Brad Friedel
when the American signed for Liverpool.
It is easy to understand, however, why Almunia, Arsenal's
goalkeeper, has run out of patience with Jens Lehmann. All season,
ever since Lehmann lost his place, the German has been belittling
Almunia at every opportunity. He has described it as a
"humiliation" to lose his place to a goalkeeper whose previous
clubs include Osasuna B, Cartagena, Sabadell, Eibar and Recreativo
Huelva.
He has described himself sitting on the sidelines feeling "very
angry" and having to "clench my fist in my pocket". His words have
been laced with contempt and, with a carefully planned sense of
timing, he claimed this week that Arsenal would still be in the
Champions League if he had been in goal. "To be sitting on the
bench behind somebody who only started to play when he was 30 is
not funny."
Until now, Almunia has chosen to rise above the jibes. This has
been a difficult week for everyone at the Emirates and, as the team
prepared for tomorrow's game at Manchester United, it became clear
that their relationship has broken down irretrievably.
"Every morning I wake up," says Almunia, "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."
Almunia is not a vindictive man. Far from it. Ask anyone at
Arsenal about the 30-year-old from Pamplona and they will talk
about him being one of the more popular members of Arsène Wenger's
dressing room. That is why he is so appalled by Lehmann's
behaviour. "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."
Lehmann, it should be pointed out, has history when it comes to
falling out with rival goalkeepers and, famously, had a
long-standing grudge with Oliver Kahn as they competed for the same
place in the German national team. Yet Almunia, by all accounts, is
a difficult man to dislike.
"I've never been in a situation like this before in my career,"
he says. "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."
The people who matter to Almunia are his family and the rest of
the Arsenal players. Plus, of course, Arsène Wenger. "I have had a
lot of nice words from them," he says. "I've been in the first XI
nearly all the season and I'm happy with my form. I've kept my
level up and I think I can be satisfied with my performances. Apart
from one person, the people here have shown a lot of confidence in
me."
Almunia has had to show the strength of his character because he
has been under scrutiny ever since he displaced Lehmann. One
newspaper likened him to Manuel from Fawlty Towers after Manchester
United's 2-2 draw at the Emirates in November, but the volume has
gradually been turned down on his critics. One certainty is that he
has made fewer errors than the man who seems so intent on demeaning
him. Lehmann, lest it be forgotten, was dropped because, in
Wenger's opinion, the 38-year-old had become a danger to his own
team.
Since then, Lehmann has been increasingly getting under Wenger's
skin and there was a telling scene at the manager's press
conference yesterday when he was asked whether the German would get
a new contract when his present deal expires at the end of this
season. "Pardon?" said Wenger incredulously. The question was
repeated and Wenger snorted with laughter. "The boss is trying to
build a team of kind people," says Almunia. "He wants easy-going
people who have character. He doesn't like arguments in the
dressing room."
The Spaniard signed his own contract extension last week and is
confident of retaining his place even if, as seems highly likely,
Wenger signs a replacement for Lehmann. "If another goalkeeper
comes in he will be made welcome," he says. "I hope we can have a
good atmosphere with all the goalkeepers working together. I signed
my contract because my heart is with Arsenal."
He is, however, still feeling depressed after what has been a
chastening period for the club, culminating in them going out of
the Champions League against Liverpool on Tuesday. "It's been a
very difficult period," he says of a run that has also seen
Wenger's side fall out of contention in the Premier League. "Nobody
expected us to have such a bad time as this. Manchester United and
Chelsea had a few bad games at the start of the season and we've
had our bad period at the crucial point of the league. That has
killed us.
"If you have one player off form, it is fine because you can
replace him. But when it's many players, all at the same time, the
team will suffer. We are a young team and our squad is quite small.
Maybe we've lost confidence, too. Everything seems to have affected
us and it looks as though Eduardo's injury has in particular. The
truth is that ever since that game, Birmingham away, we have not
played well. The team have not given 100% and we have bad
results."
The scene in the away dressing room at Anfield was particularly
emotional. "Everyone had their heads down, close to tears. It was
very quiet, not a time for anyone to be blaming anybody else. I was
devastated. I'm so upset and disappointed. But we have to come back
stronger next year. We need a bigger squad, maybe some new players
with greater experience, and then we'll be OK." And Almunia, one
suspects, will not be heartbroken to know that the bad-tempered
German who has been scoffing about his performances all season will
not be around to see it.