Emmanuel Adebayor and Barnet Friendly thoughts 19 July, 2009

So he’s gone then. Finally signing for City on a five-year deal after completing a medical yesterday while we were all in Barnet. The fee and wage are both undisclosed but I believe we got up to somewhere between £22m – £25m for him, which is brilliant. You might think we’ve strengthened a serious rival by selling Adebayor to City but for that money they could’ve got someone a lot better. If we reinvest that money well back into the side then hopefully it will turn out that City ended up indirectly strengthening us.

Wenger insists we are in no hurry to buy reminding us that we have plenty of strikers for next season:

“We’re not on the verge of signing anybody but I’m able to spend the money if we find the right players,” he said.

“We’re not in a hurry because we have a big squad. We’ll see in pre-season if we need to make any additions. If we need to add something we will. 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.

We have Rosicky and Eduardo back so we’ve lost a big striker but have gained two offensive players who were absent last season. We also have Nicklas Bendtner, Andrey Arshavin, Robin van Persie and Theo Walcott who can play striker. We have top players we can use as strikers.”

If everyone stays fit then any striker we do buy this summer might end up getting nowhere near the team! That’s a big ‘if’ though really… I’m not too bothered about us signing a striker to be fair. If two of RVP, Eduardo, Arshavin, Bendtner and Walcott are fit then I think we’re sorted. I’d rather we spent the money on that central midfielder we’ve been crying out for since Flamini and Diarra’s departure.

As for Adebayor – meh, good riddance. It’s a shame because he really grew on me. At first I was a bit skeptical, he wasn’t my favorite player but I began to appreciate what he did well and I loved how he worked for the team. But that 30-goal season went right to his head, he started demanding big money or a big move and even though he was our best player of the 07/08 season, we weren’t having any of it that summer. Just read this interview from December 2006 and see how he’s changed…

We’ve seen top players flirt with other clubs before and get away with it – He thought he could do it and everything would be rosey. Well it showed it doesn’t matter how well you play for Arsenal, if you act a cunt you get treated like one. We probably gave him a hard time at the start of last season but we did give him a chance to redeem himself. Nothing happened though; he became very lazy and was useless without his work rate. The semi finals against Manchester United couldn’t even conjure some motivation; there was doubt whether he should be played in those games or not but was given the benefit of the doubt by the manager and did fuck all. Summed up his season really.

When the news officially came through yesterday I will admit I had mixed emotions. I knew I wanted him to leave but once it was all done it felt a bit strange. Part of me had come to terms that he might have to stay this summer and earn the respect of the fans back so I was willing to allow him another chance. In the end the move got sorted so it doesn’t matter. It kind of reminded me of breaking up with a girl – you remember the good times and are sad that it’s all over but then you remember what a bitch they have been and are glad you don’t have to put up with it anymore.

I don’t know how he’ll do at City but for Arsenal’s sake I hope he’s a flop. I don’t really spite Ade that much, I don’t hope he breaks his leg or anything like that – I just hope he was as lazy and pathetic as he was at Arsenal and City wonder why they ever spend all that money on him just as we wonder how he ever was that player he used to be. It’s going to be a bit strange when Man City play Arsenal for the first time on 12th September. I won’t be booing him, he’ll just get a big ‘meh whatever’ from me but I don’t think that’ll be the case from everyone else. I’m thinking there’ll be a repeat of what was sung at yesterday’s game:

Ade-bay-orrrr,
Ade-bay-orrrrrrrrr!
We told him to fuck off,
And showed him the door.

Talking of yesterday’s game, I guess I should cover that instead of going on and on about an ex-player. I don’t think it was fully worthy of an official match report but I’ll fill you in anyway. I was sat in the Main Stand (yeah I know, plastic fan) and if you want to see my camera phone shots I have uploaded them to TwitPic. The score was 2-2 as I’m sure you know but the result didn’t really matter. Apparently it did though to some of the Barnet fans sat around me. The home side were quite up for it and were not afraid to put in a tackle and stand their ground.

For me the real treat was seeing Rosicky, he captained the side (pic) and said afterwards how much he enjoyed playing again. Tomas got a great reception from the crowd and almost scored early on when Arshavin put him through. Those two showed potential for a creative relationship so we’ll have to see how that comes on. He didn’t look too out of shape either considering it was only the first pre-season game and was even on the end of a few of those challenges I was talking about. He was subbed at half time but then so was pretty much everyone else. I’m looking forward to seeing him progress to full fitness in the next month or so.

Vermaelen was the only player to remain on from the first half and ended up playing the full 90 minutes, 45 of which wearing the captain’s armband. It’s a bit early to judge him but I thought he looked alright, he might’ve dealt with some balls a bit earlier but he managed to recover every time. I can see the ‘no-nonsense’ side in him though and I can imagine when things get a bit more serious we’ll see just how mad he can be.

Arshavin opened the scoring with a 43rd minute tap in. Wilshere sent Sanchez Watt down the left who crossed low for the Russian to open the scoring. A couple of minutes later Barnet equalized, a free kick was whipped in and Yakubu got a nod on it to put it out of Almunia’s reach. Nacer Barazite put us back in front with a great goal six minutes into the second half but Barnet made it 2-2 seven minutes from the end. Those final few minutes got a bit faster paced when we realized we weren’t going to win but in the end it was just a draw. The Barnet fans were happy and so was I because I got to watch Arsenal again. I won’t be writing any ‘Wenger Out!’ articles after this result anyway.

Well that’s if for today then. Tomorrow morning the squad flies out to Austria for the pre-season training camp and the day after that we play SC Columbia. There won’t be any match preview for that though as pretty much all the information I could find out about the game was the club’s badge! In fact I don’t know what kits they wear, where they are from or even where the game is being played! All I know is that it’s at 5.30pm our time (I think) and that it’s being played somewhere in Vienna. Aren’t you thankful for all the amazing research I do for you, ay?

Thanks for reading.