Lehmann: Arsenal can dominate for years
The German goalkeeper, now 41, is on the verge of completing a surprise return to the club on an emergency loan following injuries to stoppers Wojcech Szczesny, Lukasz Fabianksi and Vito Mannone.
“Arsenal currently have a goalkeeping crisis and I jumped at the chance to help them,” said Lehmann.
Lehmann spent five years at Arsenal and was part of the side that went the 2003-04 season unbeaten. He has credited Arsene Wenger for bringing out the best in him but claimed the Gunners coach always seemed worried by his age.
“I always knew that Arsene Wenger was very watchful about the age of players,” said Lehmann.
“When he recruited me, I was 33, and I know that when I made a mistake, he didn’t say, ‘Oops he made a mistake, I’ll put him on the bench and next season he’ll be gone,’ but rather, ‘Ahh he’s too old.’ That was his first reflex.
“As far as his relationship with goalkeepers goes, every morning he used to come and see us. He used to begin his tour with the goalkeepers. He would watch them closely, then he’d go and see the outfield players. I knew he expected to see me perfect in every game. Without saying a word, I felt it. When I arrived over there, I made a mistake. I was in the habit in Germany of asking players to hit shots at me at the end of training. At Arsenal, where I contributed to setting up this little game, I felt Wenger’s presence behind my goal. Each shot I let in, I knew he was frowning and saying to himself, ‘He should have stopped that.’ It puts you under pressure.
“Even if I did make errors, I never played so many good matches as when I was with Arsenal. Wenger got the best out of me, it was a kind of psychological war but it was good.”
Lehmann, speaking in So Foot magazine, addressed criticism by Manchester United’s Patrice Evra that Arsenal is just ‘an academy’ for players. The German agreed with Evra but predicted Wenger would have the last laugh.
“Arsenal is a youth academy, but when you see even Abramovich has no more money, you can say that Arsenal, thanks to their work with the young players, can dominate the Premier League in years to come.
“Even Chelsea have started thinking about training youngsters. The young players at Arsenal will be able to play their best football in the next five or six years, whereas Evra will be one of those players who will only be able to play 30 or 40 games a season.”
Lehmann was due to spend the next six weeks at Arsenal anyway as part of his coaching badges but will instead join the playing staff, some of whom he played with before joining Stuttgart in 2008. “When I left, there was Cesc, Clichy, Van Persie, Gibbs. Kieran Gibbs is 21 years younger than me — it’s like when I left Stuttgart I was 40 and alongside me there was Timo Gebhart, he was 20 and my son was 13. So my son was closer to my team-mates age than I was. It was a huge gap but I used to like that.”
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
