Adebayor Will Fire Us To Champions League

pablo73 said:

I agree with those saying that Adebayor is going to have fire in his belly on Sunday and play his heart out. Hopefully he can rediscover his goalscoring touch. The question is do we really want a player, and one of our highest earners at that, to just do that when he fancies it or when he has a very personal motivation? I for one don't and hope we ship him out this summer - he should have fire in his belly every time he pulls on the shirt.

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jonathanhotspur said:

I've been biting my tongue where this guy is concerned for the last few weeks. I want him out the door in the summer. I don't care if he scores a hat trick against Arsenal. I think he's a fruitcake (and not in a good way) and he can take his problem child personality elsewhere. I firmly believe there is a problem between him and AVB.

These quotes from last week really pissed me off. He needs fucking therapy. He also needs to realize that he brings trouble on himself.

"I get a tough time but I have to keep going because [it] could have been worse," he said. "I've seen people dying in front of me, I've seen people with guns in front of me. I've also had 30,000 people abusing me [in stadiums]. I take it as part of life. It's true that sometimes, you hear things and think: 'It's a tough one,' but when I go home to my wife and little daughter, they put a smile on my face. They are the only people who make me happy."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/feb/22/tottenham-emmanuel-adebayor-togo-federation

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talkshowhost86 said:

Adebayor takes up much better positions than Defoe and as a result creates space for the three players in behind him. And even if he isn't winning things in the air, he is challenging more than Defoe does which in itself creates a certain degree of havoc (see Bale's first goal against Wet Sham).

And as for Defoe rarely going through a dry patch....really? He's one of the patchiest strikers there is, and if he's not scoring he very rarely offers anything else.

Don't get me wrong I don't think Adebayor is playing well enough at the moment and if he doesn't buck his ideas up I'd have him out the door in the SUmmer as well.

But Adebayor in this form is better than Defoe in mediocre form so unless JD really hits a hot streak I'd stick with Ade for now.

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Lufti said:

So....... did you watch the match today?

Defoe to start from now on again please.

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talkshowhost86 said:

Defoe was better today.

Adebayor is the better player, particularly as the lone striker.

Your self satisfied smugness doesn't change that for me I'm afraid.

Glad to have Defoe back though as it means that Adebayor has competition and means that he can't get away with poor effort/performances. If he doesn't put the effort in then Defoe should play instead.

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fortworthspur said:

wish we'd gone after Berbatov last summer instead.

I want every Spurs player to do well, and dont want to pile abuse on Ade, but if we've had a striker with a worse campaign in the last 7 or 8 years, I cant recall it. I think Defoe had a torrid spell a couple of years ago.

anyway, Berbatov in this side would be fun to watch.

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Strikeb4ck said:

You all greatly lack an understanding of tactics in football.

Adebayor and Defoe are doing exactly what they have to do in this team and yet people just slag them off every week.

AVB is a fucking clever manager. He realized after the first half of the season, which went solid, but not great, that our big problem is the lack of a class striker. Instead he turned to our most dangerous player, Bale, and gradually pushed him in the center, and started encouraging more runs from the midfield from players like Lennon, Holtby, Sig, and especially Parker (Dembele has gone defensive since we lost Sandro which is understandable...Scotty is actually far more mobile than Moussa so his surging runs are more potent, he also seems to have more stamina).

Now the striker's role in all this is not primarily to score goals, it's to create them. The striker is crucial in this new system because it is his job to control where the opposing defence goes through his runs, his positioning, his passing, his holdup play, etc. Today you could see clearly that Adebayor was the reason for our two goals. He played high up top in the opening 20 minutes then shortly after Bale began to drop back to pick up the balls Adebayor also started dropping deeper. This meant that Arsenal's backline was a bit out of sorts as they tried to adapt and began pushing higher up, which led to the space behind in the opening two goals. However, most notably on the second goal, you could see it was Adebayor's runs into space which dragged away the defence and created all sorts of havoc and space that Sig/Scotty took advantage of.

Defoe does the same thing now, after it was clear his goals had dried up, AVB switched them into almost likely subconscious playmakers. It's also why JD now seems a different player in the lone striker role, AVB has them studying the game much more (at least I'd assume because they are both markedly better tactically) and making the runs that lead to our goals. Obviously if you get a chance like Adebayor had vs West Spam you'd expect him to put it in and that was frustrating but overall since the start of this unbeaten run we have relied heavily on JD and Ade for the space that Bale (and the other surging midfielders) need to score in. Not to mention Ade in particular (seeing as that's who this thread is about) always puts in a real shift.

Our strikers are doing just fine and it's one of the main reasons we're winning. Adebayor is a smart smart footballer and it's no surprise our run of wins (and not just unbeaten with draws every other game, but a real run of wins) coincides with his reintroduction up top.

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