No feud with Big Eck says Norwich's Lambert

Norwich boss Paul Lambert will ger a chance to give his side of the story this weekend, 15 years after walking out on his Aston Villa counterpart Alex McLeish.

The Celtic legend played under McLeish at Motherwell in 1996, when Big Eck steered the unfancied Scottish side to second in the table.

But Lambert left that summer for Borussia Dortmund on a Bosman – without telling McLeish.

“I enjoyed playing under Alex," insisted Lambert, who won the Champions League with Dortmund.

“Motherwell had just had a great season but I’d been there three years and wanted to try my luck abroad. So I invoked the Bosman ruling because I was out of contract, but left without telling Alex.

“I can see now it was wrong but at the time, I was just a player and saw it differently.

“We’ve never actually spoken about it since, but I’ve seen him several times and there are no problems. But this will be the first time we’ve come up against each other as managers.”

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