da bet7： The garden is not very rosy in the Adebayor household at the moment. It’s only just over a year into his would-be glittering Manchester City career, and already his sulking demeanour is becoming more and more prominent. Left on the bench, as Roberto Mancini opts for a single striker, and now injured, the BBC’s worst pundit (more of that later) is struggling to feel the love.
da pinup bet： There have always been personalities in football who need to be treated with a little more care, and given a little extra leeway in order to get the best out them. This however, only really works when that same player is indispensible to the club, and also can put the club’s interests ahead of their own. Paolo Di Canio at West Ham springs to mind as a good example of this; a man who on his day could single-handedly win a match for his side in conjunction with throwing a diva strop for not getting enough adoration from a referee.
Right now at Manchester City, Roberto Mancini has decided that Emmanuel Adebayor is not as important as the man himself believes. Mario Balotelli has arrived, Fernando Torres was a constant in the rumour mill of the tabloids over the summer, and Carlos Tevez is Mancini’s (rightly in my opinion) preferred choice up front. It has taken a matter of weeks for Adebayor to consider his future; there is no real concern for his employers and their targets, simply his own needs.
Adebayor managed to annoy Arsenal fans during his time in North London, even when he was playing well. Constantly the subject of rumours to the continent, he courted mumblings of moves to AC Milan and Barcelona, while maintaining that he wanted to stay, only to leave for City. If Adebayor was playing at a club where he was by far and away their best player, then a manager would do everything in their power to keep him happy, but why put up with such a childish attitude, when you can play someone else of equal, if not better, ability. Arsene Wenger knew that with the £24m he received from City, he could find a replacement for far less, enter Marouane Chamakh.
While he clearly has some ability, he has never struck me as the most eloquent of fellows (even for footballers) and so I was as startled as every other viewer in the country that the BBC deemed him a viable candidate as a pundit at the World Cup; the incident with his phone was simply embarrassing, and the analysis (if we can call it that) he gave was bordering on the pathetic.
Managers take a punt on Adebayor because they believe they will be able to get a select period of time out of him before his next strop. The turnover of players at City was always going to be vast, and although his return was decent last season (14 PL goals), I don’t think anyone truly imagined he would go onto a glittering City career as a cult legend, more that he would serve a stepping-stone purpose.
Adebayor is one of football’s mercenaries. Mancini does not have the time, not should he, to have to make special exceptions for a player who frankly isn’t that important to the club’s cause. If Adebayor is prepared to play a subordinate role – behind Tevez and Balotelli – in a professional manner, in the quest for City to make the Champions League, then I will stand corrected. But as I understand it, he is a player no boss really wants to manage.
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