Free Man
Tottenham Hotspur have finally come to a mutual agreement with Emmanuel Adebayor to release the Togolese striker from his contract with the club. When a statement is released to announce the news and it’s only seven words long, you can tell Spurs weren’t exactly enamoured with their £100,000-a-week wage drain.
‘We wish Emmanuel well for the future’ the statement on Spurs official website read after the headline declared he was off.
With Spurs finally washing their hands of the troubled 31-year-old striker it has already cued numerous stories of Sherwood opening his arms to the striker.
Adebayor had his chance to play for Villa though. He visited the club, chatted to Sherwood and had to whole transfer window to commit to Villa.
One train of thought was it was his huge wage at Spurs that complicated matters, so now he should be free to join Villa as a free agent. According to Sherwood though, money wasn’t the issue.
“It’s not financial. It’s easy to say that when you’re on his money, but he would genuinely play for nothing,” said Sherwood, midweek.
“If he wanted to play in Qatar he would have gone there a long time ago. It’s hard to say. I was going to say he’s not in it for the money but, genuinely, he wants to play at the top-level.”
No Thanks
But if Adebayor really wanted to play at the top-level he clearly didn’t seem to want to do it at Villa.
Sherwood was keen -“I would have taken him in a heartbeat”. The club had the welcome mat out and a deal had been done with Spurs, but the striker still turned Villa down (albeit apparently on God’s advice!).
Now that he’s a free agent, unless he actual wants to ‘play for nothing’ as Sherwood suggests, then Villa should finally forget about him and move on. His heart is certainly not in it and he’s had his chance.
Put it this way, while Villa could do with someone of his ability, such high maintenance players aren’t usually worth the risk and tend to be a waste of money and could also upset the morale of Villa’s new team.
The Greek Job
Hopefully Sherwood will move on in the same way he changed his mind on Esteban Cambiasso, after the 35-year-old former Argentina international dragged his heals on a move to Villa in the summer.
Sherwood admitted he was in talks with the ex-Leicester City player during the summer, as it was mooted in the press and on MOMS.
“I spoke to him and he was a very nice guy,” said Sherwood, this week.
“But he was unsure what he wanted to do and what direction he wanted to go,
“He didn’t know whether to stay here or go to the MLS or somewhere else.
“By the second time I spoke to him we had already moved in a different direction.”
The Argentine ended up at Greek club Olympiacos and ironically another player reported to have had talks with Villa, Dimitar Berbatov also ended up in the Greek league with PAOK FC.
Maybe Greece will be Adebayor’s final destination? Lets just hope they all don’t try to use the cashpoints over there all at once. UTV
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A lot of what Trevor says is correct. Sherwoods substitutions today were without doubt ridiculous. The need for a half decent experienced central attacker were without doubt evident today, and start looking for a goalkeeper – Given would not have conceded 2 of the 3 goals today
what villa need are a strong defensive organiser and a manager who knows how to kill the game. Leicester to was textbook kamikaze defending. The division now know that run vlla and the midfield gives no resistance at all.
And a manager who is k=not wet behind the ears and has never heard that you defend from the half way e would help. Ray Wilkins step forward
Sunderland and Leicester both knew that keep going and the defence will collapse. Its not the back five that matters. Run Grealish, Gil and Sinclair front of Westwood and Sanchez and you might as well wave a white flag
to get eople who can tack in the midfield.
Adebayor? Welcome to fantasy land
Trevor Fisher