The situation regarding Jens Lehmann was subject to a lot of speculation yesterday. Early in the day came rumours that officials from Borussia Dortmund had flown to London to discuss a signing and that was followed by news that the German club had announced a press conference for today, leading many to put two and two together and coming up with Jens.
Later in the afternoon though some early team news for tomorrow’s Sunday’s FA Cup game trickled through in which Arsene Wenger said ‘I think Jens Lehmann will be involved’. Obviously we’ll find out more today when that Dortmund press conference takes place but it does look like it’s the end of Lehmann’s Arsenal career. As I’ve said before it’s a shame it’s ended on a sour note but were he to spend the rest of the season on the bench behind Almunia I suspect it could get even more bitter.
Update: The Times says he’s staying because Dortmund didn’t want to meet his wage demands. Does he want to play football or get richer? How odd. At this point in his career what difference does it make?
Going back to the team news it seems we’re going to be reasonably strong against Burnley as most of the ‘first teamers’ will get a rest against Sp*rs in the Carling Cup. Although Gallas and Clichy will be rested, Sagna is back and Kolo and Eboue could feature in their last game before the ACN. Eduardo could start again and now that he’s got his first league goals under his belt he’s promising more. He talks about the clinical finishing he’s becoming famous for, saying:
Once a chance comes to you then all there is to do is to be calm and focus on scoring – it sounds simple, but that is all.
Which kind of reminds me of Monty Python’s ‘I hit the ball first time and there it was in the back of the net’. I wonder will he open a boutique any time soon. He’s also spoken highly of Luca Modric (without quite exhorting the manager to buy him like the reports say), a player we have definitely had on our radar for quite a while now.
Robin van Persie could be back for Birmingham. Or not. I’ll believe it when I see it. There’ll be fuller team news later today and I shall bring it to you in tomorrow’s blog.
Now, time for the Arsecast.
In this week’s Arsecast, brought to you in association with OleOle.com, I talk to the Man from East Lower about stuff, there’s a recap of what’s happened since the last Arsecast, the Man in the Bar has a player history and some other stuff too, I think. I’m not quite sure.
To subscribe to the arsecast in iTunes – click here. To download this week’s arsecast directly – click here (14mb MP3). You can find the arsecast archives here. And you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.
[audio:http://arseblog.com/podcasts/arsecast_episode58.mp3]And there you go. Have fun, talk to you tomorrow.
