Adebayor & City is a perfect match – Fee agreed?
Add comment July 14th, 2009
It looks very much like Emmanuel Adebayor’s three-and-a-half year spell with Arsenal is coming to a close. After Sky broke news of interest from Manchester City yesterday, reports in the last hour indicate that a £25m fee may have been agreed, and The Daily Mail have gone as far as to suggest Adebayor underwent a medical this morning.
I’m hesitant to say that a deal has been struck – City are unveiling Carlos Tevez at 2pm and we may learn more then – but I would now be surprised if an accord can’t be reached in the next few days. It’s a deal that suits all parties:
- City land an established Premier League name and goalscorer
- Arsenal sell at a good price
- Adebayor saves face by joining the City ‘project’ and earning an exorbitant wage
It’s been clear for some time that Arsene is willing to let Adebayor go. The manager has never been one to keep a disenchanted player around, and would also be keen to utilise the funds Adebayor’s sale would provide to strengthen elsewhere.
When AC Milan’s interest focused on Luis Fabiano, I began to think that Adebayor would stay for the forthcoming season. Fortunately, Samuel Eto’o’s dilly-dallying means City have come in for the Togolese striker, and will probably end up paying a good deal more than Milan would have offered – I suspect the Italians bid would have been closer to £15m than the mooted £25m on its way from Manchester.
Adebayor is clearly unsettled at Arsenal, having flirted openly with Milan and been further discomforted by their angry reaction to his folly. I’m sure he would rather join the Italians, but in the absence of any serious interest the opportunity to become one of the best paid sportsmen in the world will provide some consolation.
The danger, I suppose, is that we might be strengthening a rival, but the simple antidote to that is to spend the money we get intelligently. Perhaps a striker will arrive (Marouane Chamakh continues to be linked), but the priority still has to be a holding midfielder.
With a press conference from Eastlands in a matter of minutes, hopefully we’ll have more news this afternoon. It’s entirely possible that Adebayor could walk out alongside Tevez, signifying a transfer that’d be celebrated as much in North London as in Manchester.