It’s 1:43am and I’m struggling to conceive one positive sentence about either of Arsenal’s fit goalkeepers – Jens Lehmann and Manuel Almunia. I suppose the idea is to weigh up the facts and decide which is least awful but the mere fact that both ‘keepers are yet again competing against each other for Arsenal’s number 1 jersey, at a time when the Gunners’ Premier League campaign hangs unnervingly in the balance, is keeping me awake.
Don’t get me wrong, seeing Lehmann push an opposition striker for the crime of lingering near the German brings me far greater pleasure than the wet, apologetic look Almunia wears on his face each time he mopes back to the dressing room following a game of dropped balls and dropped points. Especially, that is, when the irritant striker is Robbie Keane (2004) or Didier Drogba (2006).
It’s pretty obvious that Lehmann, when he eventually hangs up his gloves for the last time, will be able to revisit his career with more fond memories than his Spanish counterpart. That’s not to say Lehmann hasn’t been privy to as many glaring errors as Almunia, but the current holder of squad-number 1 will strain to recall any significant contribution made during seven seasons with Arsenal. Lehmann has recently admitted that the decision to bring down Samuel Eto’o in the 2006 Champions League Final, a prerequisite for his early dismissal, is his biggest regret in football. Despite this oversight, it was Lehamann who in stoppage-time of Arsenal’s semi-final second leg against Villarreal saved Juan Roman Riquelme’s penalty to send his team to the Stade de France.
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In spite of the disappointment in Paris, Lehmann was awarded the UEFA Club Goalkeeper of Year, helped Germany to third place at his home nation’s World Cup and was selected in the FIFA World Cup All-Star Team later that summer. Almost five years have passed since his halcyon days and the German is now 41.
‘Mad Jens’ marked his first return to the Arsenal side he left in 2008, playing for a reserve XI against Wigan, with a less than inspiring goalkeeping demonstration. Arsene Wenger did not attend the match at the Robin Park Arena in Wigan but will do well to avoid the widespread criticism Lehmann faces for his farcical performance. The former Stuttgart ‘keeper confessed he was surprised to receive a call from Wenger, but the 200-strong audience which included Arsenal goalkeeping coach, Gerry Payton, will not have been shocked by Lehmann’s erratic and error-laden display.
Wenger’s alternative is to re-promote Almunia to the position of Arsenal’s number 1, but the Spaniard has spent most of the current campaign injured or playing up-front for West Brom, so represents an uncertain option. One diminutive spec of encouragement for Wenger is the solidity Almunia exhibited when called upon to replace the injured Wojciech Szczesny at the Nou Camp earlier this month. The Gunners were sent inauspiciously back to London following a 3-1 defeat but their stand-in goalkeeper didn’t put a foot, or hand, wrong.
The fact that Wenger attends training this morning unable to escape the deja-vu of his own making emphasises a wider issue that has frustrated Arsenal fans since the departure of David Seaman. It is truly remarkable that at this stage of ‘Wenger’s Young Guns’ development the Frenchman faces the prospect of choosing between the two goalkeepers who have both produced the extraordinary and held Arsenal back in equal measure over the last seven years. I would have thought Almunia provides the greater security heading in to the final few matches of Arsenal’s fading title campaign as the lesser of two evils, or rather the least comedic of the two clowns.
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