Today it seems that both AC Milan and Barcelona have come right out and officially made Adebayor their top transfer target... Barcelona will probably sign Hleb and Milan have already signed Flamini... these are big money clubs so, in a way it is a good thing that both of them are so determined to sign him – good in a way that if he does decide to leave then we can be sure of getting a very good return to invest in new talent. I am hoping though that Ade will decide to stay – he has 'Arsenal Legend' written all over him. Defenders are already terrified of his strength, pace, fitness and skill on the ball – and he is still improving. I have seen matches where the opposing team have man-marked him with two players, one on each shoulder like minders, and he has still lost them or run them both into the ground. Rio Ferdinand has stated publicly that Adebayor is the hardest challenge he has had to face as a defender – as you turn your back for a minute and he's lost you... i.e. he requires 100% of a defenders concentration for the full game if you are going to keep him quiet. This is why he worked so well with Eduardo – how can you devote all your defence to watching Adebayor while you have Eduardo, a very different player in his own way, popping up out of nowhere and scoring. Together they were brutal and you could see a partnership forming between them that would be very special indeed.
To explain – the main reason that Adebayor was scoring so many goals was because he was able to find the space that Eduardo was giving him – but this is not to say that Eduardo was merely a distraction... Eduardo is as effective a striker as Adebayor in his own right and together they could throw the opposition defence into a panic and tear them in half. I was utterly devastated when Eduardo got his leg broken... and it was about that point that Adebayor stopped scoring as many goals... for one - he was marked/fouled out of the game and for two – he was incorrectly ruled offside by a spate of key decisions by the match officials' that crosses the boarder of the ridiculous... as an aside - I think at one point we got 12 key decisions go against us incorrectly back-to-back - it could be more as I lost count - now, you get yourself a coin and try and flip it heads up 12 times in a row and tell me how long it takes and I'll see you next week. Ask yourself this - was the reason our season fell apart just bad luck? Was it entirely down to injuries? Or was it some other media lie?
Get the facts together and come to your own conclusions.
Back to Adebayor, if he stays at Arsenal then he will continue to improve, there is no question – with Eduardo returning to fitness I would love to see them picking up that partnership where they left off. If he goes then his only motivation will be economic and short-term economic at that. He has friends at Barcelona in Henry and Hleb (probably) but his work here in North London is currently an unfinished opus.
There is a good story (one of the few) written about Adebayor on the BBC website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7464385.stm
Reading this fills me with the hope that he is not a man who is all about the money and his statements about loving the club and fans were genuine...
Time will tell.
Anyway, onto tonight's match:
Germany v Turkey @ Basel
Unless the German coach crashes on the way to the stadium then Germany will win – I can't see any other outcome. 2 goal minimum - Get on it large...
...if Turkey win; I get no sleep tonight...
:-\
