Arsenal’ Spanish goalkeeper Manuel Almunia has struck back at Jen Lehmann, following the German’s outburst last week.

Following Arsenal’s Champions League exit, Jens Lehmann hit out in the press at his manager Wenger and his Arsenal colleague Almunia.

LEHMANN SLAM WENGER & ALMUNIA

It’s not the first time Lehmann has hit out at Almunia and neither is it the first time he has had a run in with a competing goalkeeper. Lehmann has had a well publicised rivalry with Bayern Munich’s goalkeeper Oliver Kahn. Kahn was responsible for keeping Lehmann out of the national team for some time, during this period Lehmann was regularly vocal in knocking Kahn.

More unusually, Almunia has opted to speak out at Lehmann.

Almunia speaking in The Guardian:

I’m an easy-going person. 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.

But I don’t care about him any more. He can say what he likes. 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. 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. It’s not important to me what he says or what he thinks.