In an ideal world we’d be putting Saturday’s defeat behind us and saying no more about it. That, however, is impossible given the furore caused by Emmanuel Adebayor.
It’s likely he’s going to be hit with FA charges for the celebration and the stamp on Robin van Persie. Regarding the celebration there are those who say Arsenal fans shouldn’t have reacted like that and perhaps that’s true to an extent. There’s an accusation that football fans are very quick to dish out banter but when they get a bit back they get a bit precious, and that’s also true at times.
But there’s a responsibility on players to rise above it. I’ve read about the ‘abuse’ handed out to Adebayor, he’s used it as an excuse himself, but eye-witness reports from the game itself don’t tally with what he says and what’s being said in the press. And I’ve heard him get worse stick when he was an Arsenal player and he didn’t react like that. He wanted to wind-up Arsenal fans, it worked, but the onus is on him to be the professional. He is the one paid huge amounts of money and that there was bitterness from Arsenal fans is because they were the ones whose season tickets etc were paying him to amble about last season.
Kolo Toure came over and dragged him away. There’s a picture of both Kolo and Craig Bellamy holding their hands up to apologise. Craig Bellamy. This is a man who hit one of his own teammates about the legs with a golf club and he’s more professional than Adebayor. The Greater Manchester police are less than impressed which is bound to have a bearing on the outcome on the FA investigation.
Mark Hughes, Man City manager, knows Adebayor is in the wrong but has done little but make excuses for him. While I don’t expect any manager to castigate his player in public you have to laugh when he says:
He needs to be cut a little bit of slack given what he has gone through in the last 18 months
What has he gone through? Serious illness? Unemployment? A traumatic accident? A death in his family? No. He created a sticky situation for himself at work, where he was paid £80,000 a week, and then made that situation worse when it would have been easy to make it better. Then he got a different job which pays him £140,000 a week. A WEEK. What he’s gone through? Give me a break and spend a few days in the real world. There are people who go through worse every single day of their lives and nobody should have any sympathy for Adebayor about what happened to him at Arsenal. It was his fault and his fault alone.
The van Persie stamp should see him banned for 3 games automatically. If the ref had seen it – and maybe he should have got laser eye surgery instead of hair implants – it would have been a red card. Adebayor claims he tried to speak to van Persie afterwards but naturally the Dutchman was having none of it. I would have liked to see more of our players follow that example than spend time hugging him afterwards but that’s very much a side issue.
Any kind of violent play should be punished as severely as possible and that goes for Arsenal players who set out to deliberately injure an opponent too. What will gall City fans when they get over their crowing and stop and think about it is the fact that Adebayor went out on Saturday with nothing more than his own agenda in mind. He wanted revenge. Quite what for I don’t know. As Arsene Wenger said:
At Arsenal we tried to treat him well. He came from Metz where he did not play and now he is the player he is. I do not feel we treated him badly.
And he’s right. He had an issue with the fans and the fans had an issue with him but what did Cesc Fabregas ever do but create goals for him? So why the vicious stamp on his ankle? I never heard Robin van Persie say a bad word about him so why rake his studs down his face? The fact is that Adebayor was not a Man City player on Saturday, he was an Adebayor player. He’ll now miss at least 3 games (maybe more if he gets banned for the celebration), including the Manchester derby this weekend, and it’s the first little hint City fans have that the most important thing to Adebayor is Adebayor, not his club.
It was self-indulgent, unprofessional and when you read him saying that he has no idea why he should be banned for anything then, if you’re a City fan, you’ve got to be a bit worried. That lack of insight applies to his performances on the pitch and his behaviour off it too. He could not understand why Arsenal fans reacted to his antics last summer because he lives in a cosseted bubble where he gets to do what he wants without worrying about the consequences. Now, perhaps, he’ll get a taste of reality.
Anyway, I think we’ve spent enough time on him. When the verdict comes it’ll be mentioned here. Then until April 24th, when he returns to the Grove for the first time, this shall remain an Adebayor-free zone*
There’s not a whole lot else going on this morning, it has to be said. Eduardo‘s appeal against his 2 match ban takes place today in Switzerland so we’ll find out if he’s available for Wednesday’s trip to Belgium.
What’s not in doubt though is that we need to put Saturday behind us, regroup and start winning football matches. The start to the season calmed a lot of nerves, the last two results have re-opened old wounds, so to speak. Now comes a real test of the manager’s belief in these players. We’ve got a great chance to create some momentum, both in Europe and domestically, but thoughts on that, team selections, injuries and everything else can wait until tomorrow.
Till then.
* unless he does something especially cunty in which case all bets are off
