Fights in the dressing room, screaming matches with Manuel Almunia and William Gallas acting like ‘a sulky child’

Having William Gallas head the team in the 2007/08 season was problematic. We had learned of his appointment in the papers and we all shook our heads. The previous season he had repeatedly turned up very late for training or had left the training ground without permission. With the promotion, Wenger apparently wanted to appeal to Gallas’s sense of responsibility, trying to turn him from Saul to Paul. Initially, this went successfully, until Gallas once briefly lost his nerve.

We were due to play Birmingham away in February, and Arsène took me out of goal again. Downstairs in the conference room, the boss informed me about my renewed banishment. ‘Jens, I know you’ve been playing well and are looking fresh and sharp on the pitch again. But I need to give Manuel Almunia a chance; it’s what you, too, would expect me to do after an injury.’

He was making a mistake, I retorted, as now, during the final sprint for the title, he would need experience on the team, and Manuel was playing his first proper season at this level. He had been playing very well, but when a player starts playing at top level this late, he struggles to lead others in big games. The player focuses on himself and his performance, but is unable to support the others in a difficult situation.