Jens Lehmann doesn’t know when to stop talking, so perhaps we should take his comments with a pinch of salt. In a way, it’s refreshing to hear a footballer shoot from the hip, when so many players say relatively nothing when being interviewed. The former Arsenal keeper’s latest gem concerns Liverpool striker Fernando Torres, who had the audacity to nick the ball past Lehmann to win Euro 2008 for Spain, something a certain Barcelona striker used to do all the time at Highbury and the Emirates.
The Daily Mail reports that the shot-stopper is not content with laying into Sunday night’s referee for being so biased as to let lucky Spain beat their superior opponents (!), he’s also quick to belittle the Reds striker, whom he claims has got a long way to go before he can reach Thierry Henry’s level.
But when asked about Torres’s quality, Lehmann said: “Well, he scored and that’s what you have to do as a striker but you’re asking someone who played together for years with Thierry Henry and he was a God, performance-wise, when he was in England.
“So when you take him and compare him to other strikers, there’s a difference and Torres is definitely still not at Thierry’s level.”
While the Frenchman was one of the greatest players to ever grace the Premier League, surely Torres is virtually on a par with Henry right now? Pace-wise, there is little to seperate them, while it’s hard to imagine that Thierry would have done any better than the Liverpool striker during his first season at Anfield. Is Lehmann talking codswallop or is he on to something here?