Source: Daily_Mail
Martin Samuel: Adebayor was a pain but will selling him hurt Wenger more?
Few tears are being shed for Emmanuel Adebayor among Arsenal supporters, but surely selling to Manchester City goes down as Arsene Wenger's biggest gamble. Yes, City are buying trouble judging by his previous record, but Arsenal are also inviting it by trading one of their best players to a club who will make a serious attempt to evict them from the top four this season.
'Adebayor is a great player and he'll show that again at Manchester City,' said Wenger. And if he is right, who has most to lose?
Arsenal are the most vulnerable of the elite clubs, that much is obvious. They have finished fourth in three of the last four seasons and, in May, ended 11 points adrift of third-placed Chelsea, having finished third, seven points in front of Liverpool, the previous year. They will have to pre-qualify for the Champions League again this season, as they have at the start of every campaign since 2005-06.
Wenger does not work with the same budget as his contemporaries and, sooner or later, he will fail to pull off his traditional magic act of staying competitive with a young squad. Meanwhile, City are throwing money at the problem in the hope that this is the year Arsenal slip.
So, if Adebayor had been sold to AC Milan or even Chelsea, it would have made sense; but to the club who are most capable of kicking a hole in Arsenal's financial future? This is a big risk on Wenger's part.
The Champions League funds have kept Arsenal ahead of the chasing pack. Without them, there would be serious repercussions, sporting and financial. The chances of keeping a player like Cesc Fabregas with only Europa League football are minimal; the chances of enticing a player such as Andrey Arshavin likewise. Shorn of the Champions League, Arsenal's biggest selling point would be history and the chance to work with Wenger - and would even that be guaranteed?
Wenger has clearly tired of Adebayor, which is understandable. The player's contradictory statements about his intentions, questionable attitude towards his team-mates and performances that often show a lack of focus and care would try the patience of any manager.
Yet Wenger claimed the main reason for selling was that Adebayor was unpopular with the home crowd. 'Believe me, we have lost a great player,' he said. If so, why sell? Why not tough it out? It sounds like an excuse. If Adebayor propels City into Arsenal's place next season, is Wenger going to blame faceless detractors in the stand? That is hardly fair. Arsenal are not run by committee. If Adebayor is an asset, Wenger should have stood by him. He cannot have it all ways.
Perhaps Wenger thinks he is merely transferring a problem to a rival. He may smile that all he has sold Mark Hughes, the Manchester City manager, is a season of migraines, tantrums and dressing-room unrest. After all, Hughes has been buying strikers in a manner that is most gently described as haphazard. Selling him Adebayor is like throwing a lit match into a box of fireworks.
Hughes is already juggling a first-choice forward line of Robinho, Carlos Tevez and Roque Santa Cruz, not to mention a squad roll call that includes Craig Bellamy, Valeri Bojinov and Felipe Caicedo. Toss in Adebayor and wait for the explosion when the team sheet goes up.
Yet suppose he makes it work. Suppose by the start of the season Hughes has chopped out the dead wood and is left with a quartet of strong, skilful forwards, Adebayor chief among them.
Would that not be more than a match for what remains at Arsenal? Wenger has a gifted front line, but also a flawed one. Robin van Persie and Theo Walcott are prone to injury, while who knows how Eduardo will fare after such a long absence? Then there is Nicklas Bendtner, a player whose displays do not always support Wenger's faith.
The last time Arsenal finished above fourth, Adebayor scored 30 goals. Over the last three seasons he has averaged a fraction under 20 (which would place him in the Premier League's top five most seasons), and when Manchester City last visited on April 4, Adebayor scored twice in a 2-0 win. Taking 20 away from the 'goals for' column would hurt any club, particularly if that number was then handed to a rival.
There is no doubt City will be a work in progress this season. It is hard to get so many new players to gel and Hughes has not got indefinite time to make it work. Equally, throw enough money at a problem and it tends to go away.
Whoever said that success cannot be bought is no student of the league table. If City do get it together, Arsenal are under threat.
More than the loss of Patrick Vieira or Thierry Henry, this is Wenger's big wager. Adebayor may have been Arsenal's pain in the neck but he can hurt them a lot more from Manchester.
If the football season were kicking off tomorrow, many would have a strong fancy for Liverpool. By this time next week, however, that confidence may have evaporated if the sale of Xabi Alonso to Real Madrid goes through.
Last year, Rafael Benitez looked to be moulding a perfectly balanced team until the deal for Gareth Barry collapsed. Now, just when Liverpool are close to getting it right again, there is the likelihood that one of their most important players from last season may be lost.
Even if the fee is £30million, it is not worth it with the title at stake. Alonso's move might finance a bid for David Villa (although, with Barcelona still interested, getting him would not be guaranteed) but it would leave a hole in Liverpool's centre not easily filled.
Richard Gasquet, the French tennis player, escaped a long ban for cocaine use after a tribunal accepted that he may have ingested the drug by accident. Gasquet explained that he had been kissing a stranger known only as Pamela at a nightclub before failing the test.
'We conclude that it is more likely than not that the cocaine detected in the player's urine sample entered by means of Pamela's kissing between about 2am and 5am that morning,' the tribunal noted.
'We conclude that Pamela had herself, deliberately or otherwise, ingested cocaine before contaminating the player.'
Leaving aside the argument that cocaine users harm only themselves and gain no advantage in performance, there will be many who wish their own brushes with officialdom could be heard by such an understanding body of men.
Those excuses about homework consumed by German shepherds, malaria-stricken grandmothers and the parlous state of the rail services, with particular regard to leaves, snow, engineering works or a set of badgers that could not be moved for conservational reasons, would certainly be treated with greater sympathy.
Having introduced this delightful precedent, one imagines Pamela and her wandering tongue will be found contaminating all the best mouths in sport over the coming years.
AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT...
One of the mysteries of the summer is why Sheffield United continue to sell their best players, having won their compensation claim against West Ham United. There is a plan to increase the capacity of Bramall Lane to 44,000 in the hope of making it a venue if England secure the 2018 World Cup, but who is going to fill those seats if the club remain mired in the Championship?
David Beckham, lassoed back to Major League Soccer after the end of his loan spell at AC Milan and roundly booed throughout his first game, says that his England team-mate John Terry should resist the lure of Manchester City and remain at Chelsea. And while there are many subjects on which Beckham's advice would be welcomed (Hebrew tattoos, fancy underpants and major airline timetables between Los Angeles and London, for instance) it is fair to say bright career moves for ageing professional footballers is not among them.
ESPN have signed Ray Stubbs to front their football coverage next season. Better than Setanta already.
The introduction of batting buddies seems to have worked magnificently for England's tail end, to the extent that it will not be long before roles are reversed and the bowlers start handing out batting tips to Ravi Bopara. It was not always this way.
Angus Fraser, ex- England bowler and now managing director of Middlesex, recalls that when David Lloyd first introduced the idea during his time as England's head coach, Michael Atherton was appointed his buddy.
Sadly, he proved no mentor and their partnership ended with Atherton (right) encouraging his protégé with such comments as 'What's the point?' and 'Waste of time'. Atherton called a halt after one session. Fraser, implementing his new technique, was yorked first ball in his next Test.
This could explain why, although Athers remains an outstanding cricket correspondent and television analyst, the regular entreaties from colleagues that he should seek a definitive role coaching and managing English cricket continue to fall on deaf ears.
An allegation that Colin Montgomerie behaved (as the Aussies would say) in a pretty ordinary way during a tournament in Jakarta refuses to die. This should not surprise. When Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond books, wished to show the absolutely rotten nature of his villain Auric Goldfinger, he made him a golf cheat.
Carlos Tevez says that Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United manager, did not call or send any texts before their acrimonious break-up. As Tevez (right) made this complaint through a Spanish interpreter due to his lack of English, what would be the point if Ferguson had?
Part three of the greatest football nickname debate. Geoff Shreeves, of Sky TV, has submitted the one given to Roger Freestone, the former Chelsea goalkeeper, whose rising weight was adversely proportional to his fall through the divisions until, by the end, he was known as 'Forty'. Think about it.
Portsmouth sinking fast
Portsmouth's new kit launch is tomorrow, which should be interesting as the company manufacturing it, Canterbury, have gone into administration and cancelled all contracts.
This leaves Portsmouth with no committed owner, no permanent manager, no new signings, no kit and their best player, England striker Peter Crouch, on his way to Tottenham. Glen Johnson, the star of last season, has already been sold to Liverpool.
There is no actual manual giving instruction on how to get relegated but, if there were, the executive management at Portsmouth would seem the ideal fellows to compose it.
There is justifiable outrage that, despite the crisis in the banking system, senior executives at companies such as Goldman Sachs continue to draw large bonuses and salaries. And yet barely a ripple this week when it was revealed that David Higgins, chief executive of the Olympic Delivery Authority, collected £384,000 in basic pay, plus a bonus of £209,000 and pension contributions of £48,000 for marshalling a project that has been forced to call on £500million of government contingency funding to bail it out.
Players from French football club Nancy have cancelled their pre-season trip to England because they are scared of catching swine flu. I am pretty sure you lot can take the punch line from here, so I'm off on holiday. See you next month.
