So he’s gone. After a week of not so much ‘Will he? Won’t he?’, more ‘When will he?’, he finally willed yesterday evening.
Emmanuel Adebayor signed a 5 year deal with Manchester City. Arsenal receive a fee believed to be around £25m and it’s good business for all concerned. City get a striker better than Darius Vassell and we get a load of money for a player who didn’t want to be at the club anymore.
In this pre-confirmation-of-transfer interview with the BBC Arsene Wenger said he felt there was a little bit of resentment on Adebayor’s part that he didn’t move last summer. He obviously had his heart set on Milan or Barcelona. It also confirms that he did want to go last summer despite many people thinking this was not the case.
You have to wonder though – if he felt resentment staying at Arsenal when he wanted to be elsewhere, what is he going to feel at City? No doubt he’s got a big, big wage increase, which will certainly help make it easier, but there’s no question it’s a step-down in footballing terms. No Champions League, no European football of any kind this season, and while they’ve certainly got plenty of ambition, neither Rome nor Abu Dhabi were built in a day.
Anyway, he’s a footballer who had his head turned by money, he’s not the first and he certainly won’t be the last. His advisors have taken away a real chance from him, a player who, if he had kept working hard and not believed the hype, might well have had a great career at Arsenal and improved as a footballer while doing so.
But when you’re dealing with a guy who, at 24 years of age, talks about having to prepare for his retirement then you know where his focus is. He says he didn’t go to City for cash, which may in part be true. He went to City because he really had no choice, he’d backed himself into a corner at Arsenal with his behaviour, poor performances and the Football Focus interview which was essentially Gooner Hara-kiri.
There was no Barcelona offer this summer. There was no Milan offer, even with all of that Kaka money and their very real need for a striker. City was the only option he had. And look, he acted like a cunt, in my opinion, but in the grand scheme of things he’s just another footballer who was badly advised, let his ego get the better of him and fucked things up when there was no need for it at all.
I’ve noticed a couple of headlines this morning claiming that AW says the fans forced him out. Firstly, Wenger said no such thing and secondly it’s not true. The responsibility for what happened last summer is entirely Adebayor’s, and what was borne out of that is down to him as well.
So I’m glad to see him go but that’s about as far as it goes. Arsene Wenger can wish him well and thank him for the goals he scored, as you would expect the manager to do. Arsenal fans can remember some fantastic goals, particularly against Sp*rs, and consign him to history which is where he now belongs.
The main talking point now is : What are we going to do with all that delicious money?!
I’ve been of the opinion that Adebayor doesn’t necessarily need to be replaced, depending on how we line up nect season, and it’s something the boss is obviously considering too, although he does mention Chamakh. He says:
We have Van Persie, Arshavin, Rosicky, Walcott, Bendtner, Eduardo. We are not in a hurry. We just want to prepare for the season and see if we need to add something. Chamakh is one of the players we’ve followed and if we need to go for a striker he’s a possibility. We’re keeping an eye on him.
Without wishing to sound like a broken record I can live without a striker coming in, I can quite happily accept Chamakh as a relatively cheap gamble if that’s what he wants to do, but I dearly want to see us pursue the midfielder the manager seems to think we need as well. We were clearly after Melo and it’d be nice to go out and do that business as soon as possible. No doubt there’ll be all kinds of speculation now that the press know we have a few bob to spend (like The People going all original and linking us again with Obafemi Martins).
Anwyay, all that transfer malarkey aside it was nice to have football yesterday. I watched the 2-2 draw with Barnet which saw our goals come from Andrei Arhsavin after nice work from Sanchez Watt in the first half and a beautiful curler from Nacer Barazite in the second. Their goals came from scrappy defending, both from set-pieces, so obviously old habits are dying hard.
But there’s really no need to analyse the performance in any way. It’s the first warm-up game of pre-season, anyone who wishes to sound alerts or anything like it is taking life way too seriously. We saw the debut of Thomas Vermaelen who played like this was the first warm-up game of pre-season so it’s far too early to start making any judgements.
For me the most positive thing was seeing Tomas Rosicky back. He captained the side, looked absolutely delighted to be out there, and got stuck in to a couple of really strong challenges which I’m sure will give him plenty of confidence. It’s good to have him back.
Next week the lads head off to the Austrian training camp and some more warm-up games. The next one is on Tuesday against SC Colombia.
And that’s about that for this Sunday. Have yourselves a fine day. More tomorrow.
