Adebayor saga reaching conclusion as Arsenal sit down at negotiating table
Add comment July 9th, 2008
Assuming we can trust the words of AC Milan’s vice-president Adriano Galliani, Arsenal appear to have given up hope of retaining Emmanuel Adebayor. Galliani told the Italian press last night:
“I will reveal to you a scoop: I have received a letter from Arsenal that says, ‘Following our communication of June 13, in which we informed you we were not willing to deal over Adebayor, now we are writing to tell you that we will consider a deal if it still interests you’.”
In the space of a month, Arsenal’s resolve has diminished dramatically, and one can only imagine it’s because Adebayor has made his position at the club untenable.
When Milan were first interested, our resistance was genuine. I heartily believe there was never any desire on the part of Arsene or the board to see Adebayor depart. But whatever has happened in the past month has changed that, and our letter to Milan is essentially an admission that Adebayor is likely to leave.
The principle factor is clearly Ade’s significant wage demands. Reportedly his agent told the board shortly after the end of last season that his client expected to double his wage. I sincerely doubt the club would have agreed to that in itself, but factor in that both Barca and Milan have since offered him even more money, and from a financial perspective Adebayor’s move seems inevitable.
It had looked like Barca were the front-runners, and perhaps they still are – it’s quite likely that in inviting Milan to bid, Arsenal are trying to create an auction between the European giants for the forward’s services, and hopefully push his price closer to the £30m mark.
The timing of our letter to Milan is interesting – does it indicate that we already have a replacement lined up? The name you read all over the press is Roque Santa Cruz, but then the press were equally convinced we’d replace Thierry Henry with Nicolas Anelka. As ever with Arsene, I wouldn’t be surprised to be surprised.
I’ll speak more about Adebayor himself at a later date, but the challenge facing Arsene this Summer is enormous. We’ve sold plenty of players in his time at the club, but never three first-team players who were all at or just about to hit their peak – that’s why Flamini, Hleb, and Adebayor leaving is potentially more damaging than the departure of a distracted Patrick Vieira or ailing Thierry Henry.
Still, has Le Boss ever got it too far wrong?
