The REAL reason why Almunia was left on bench

Almunia suffered a tragedy
It has been revealed today the real reason why Arsene Wenger left Manuel Almunia on the Arsenal bench, and was probably the reason why no-one was told about Almunia’s “mystery virus”.
I always said there must be something deeper behind that excuse, because it has never taken six weeks to get over any cold, not even swine flu!
But now we know; It was because Almunia’s family suffered a personal tragedy when his wife’s mother was killed in a car crash in Spain in September.
Although Almunia carried on training as usual, Arsene Wenger felt that his Number One goalkeeper should be given more time to get over the pain he shared with his wife.
It was only this weekend against Tottenham that Wenger believed that Almunia was his old self again and restored him to the first-team.
Vito Mannone did a good job in Almunia’s place for the first few weeks, but then errors started to creep into his game, but the experience will hold him in good stead in the future. But in the meantime, Almunia will remain Number One in Wenger’s eyes.
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mystery solved – why Almunia was left on bench http://twurl.nl/bi15sr [in all honesty, sorry to hear that. hold on & stay strong, Almunia!]
Arsenal News | The REAL reason why Almunia was left on bench http://bit.ly/t37Tr
If this is true then this shows once again the class of Arsene Wenger and his humanity.
If it’s true then I feel very sorry for him. And what a gentleman Arsene Wenger is. I love his footballing and humanism philosophy.
Yeah wenger’s class and humanity… that is why he keeps sticking to diaby even though he sucks!!!
Sorry but i dont believe that excuse i dont see why the tragedy would not have been mentioned Sagna lost a family member and it was mentioned through out and he still played so did Cesc when he lost his granDad[i think] but it was all mentioned and they played if they felt they could
Almunia was dropped because of his performances period.
hi Casisky,
different people have different level of emotion, attachment, thus different level of reaction. Mr & Mrs Alumina, I feeling goes to u
Well done Mr AW.
Where did u get that story? he was dropped,he had so many errors.i wish vito did not err when we played west ham and that cost him.
i wish we bougth all new players except cesc. especlially almunia and diaby. Im a 15 year old arsenalfan with alot of anger inside. and i know best. i know for a FACT that almunia and Diaby is crap anyway. I cannot see the arsenal games but i read it on forum and all the people i know that play cs09 says so and all the hobby managers i know that sit in their couch and moan says so. thats why it is true.
do you guys really think that almunia was dropped because of his performances ok they were poor at the beginning of the season but name me 1 player that is left out for so long because of poor performances. Diaby is playing poor according to those foolish fans who keep on jumping on his back everytime he looses a ball but keep quiet when cesc looses the ball “FUNNY” aint it.
But anyways wenger wouldnt leave someone out for so long if they are performing poor, try and give some examples if you can, dont even mention eboue because he has been 1 of best players this season so far, and last season he played the next game after the wigan game at the emirates. wenger left almunia out because of the family issues all you have to is go back and look at almunia’s face and you will see there was something haunting him severely. Especially the man city game, give credit to him for coming and performing comfortably and well in the middle of a tough london derby and of course full credits to arsene wenger CLASSS AND GENTLEMANLY AS USUAL.
I just read that article by Steve Stammers.
It just goes to show that we never know what’s going on behind the scenes.
@cassiky
some people cope differently with tragedy, Sagna played but it took a toll on him, he even admitted that it affected his performances greatly.
Wenger probably didn’t want the same to happen, especially in goal where a mistake means conceding a goal.