Jens Lehmann will bring discipline to the Arsenal dressing room, says Invincible Robert Pires

1/13
James Benge25 July 2017

Jens Lehmann will bring discipline to Arsenal's dressing room, according to fellow Invincible Robert Pires.

The 47-year-old former German international goalkeeper Lehmann joined Arsenal's setup earlier this summer, recruited by Arsene Wenger as a first-team coach.

Contrary to initial expectations Lehmann will not focus on the shot-stoppers but will have a broader remit that he termed to be "more up on the stands than down on the bench".

Lehmann is now into his third spell at Arsenal, having first joined from Borussia Dortmund in July 2003. Over the following five years he was part of the side that went unbeaten on their way to the title in the 2003-04 season.

Having left in 2008 Lehmann was brought back three years later to provide cover amid an injury crisis.

He has been reunited with Pires at Arsenal's Colney training base, where the Frenchman is a regular presence, and his former team-mate is backing him to make a major impact.

"I’m very pleased for Jens, he’s a good guy and a good professional," Pires told Sky Sports. "He can help the goalkeepers but not only them, the rest of the squad as well.

"You need to have a competitive side and Jens has always had that. He’s a great professional. He’s a German too, so he has his own rules. Sometimes he is very strict, but you need to have discipline in the dressing room and Jens is the man to bring that."

Pires is not the only former Invincible backing Lehmann to make a major impact at Colney, with Gilberto Silva convinced the famously combustible German will keep the Arsenal first-team in line.

​Gilberto said: "I am sure it will be very important for the club to have him around because he is the kind of person who pushes the other guys when he sees something that is not right. The way he does things is in a very positive way.

"Maybe sometimes people saw him do things in the past and had a different interpretation of things but the way he was with us, sometimes we laughed. But in the end, we knew he was doing it for the benefit of the team. Sometimes you must have someone like this."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in