Emmanuel Adebayor is receiving praise from all corners, with none more pleasing from his point of view I should think, than that lavished on him by Arsene Wenger. The manager seemed to question what the reasons for the improvement were,

I don’t know what it is down to…perhaps we have a little bit of special spirit in the club…it is down to his talent and dedications as well. There was a question mark about Adebayor - his attitude and his spirit. Did we change him or did he realise he had wasted enough time already? I don’t know

Comparisons are being made to Drogba and there are certainly some parallels between the two, both underachieved in their first English seasons and their work-rates underappreciated in the stands. With Adebayor, you could see the ability was there but the question mark remained over application. He was proof of Arsene’s assertion when buying Reyes that it takes six months for a foreign player to adjust to England and the English game. Last season saw a personal growth from the Togolese international, scoring important goals for the team and being talismanic in the first half of the season.

Subsequent to Henry’s departure, he has emerged as the main striker at the club. Comparisons to Henry are vacuous, their playing styles being totally different. Yet the end result is going in the same direction, Adebayor scoring more freely than expected. I wrote at the start of the season that he needed to contribute about twenty five this season if the club were to challenge for the title with van Persie getting fifteen. Adebayor is on course to exceed that total and eat in those missed whilst the Dutchman has been injured. It is his all – round play that has set him apart from others and created the minority criticism of him. Quite simply, we are not used to this at Arsenal. The archetypal centre-forward that has been at the club have been the focal point of the attack only, a style commonplace in England. This is not a ‘Wenger’ phenomenon, it stretches back through history. Adebayor works tirelessly closing people down, tracking back or coming deep to collect the ball as on Saturday at the City of Manchester stadium.

The scoring ‘spree’ he has embarked upon inevitably leads to newspaper speculation about his future, partially fuelled no doubt by the comments the player made in the summer regarding offers for his services from Old Trafford. There is possibly some element of truth in those but any move would have been highly unlikely, as it seems to be now. In many respects though such speculation is reassuring; after all, he must be doing something right if the papers believe there are legs in such gossip.

Arsene meanwhile believes it will take ninety or more points to win the title this season which compared to recent times is a massive total for a close fought race. It is not unusual for a team to get there or thereabouts but generally in doing so, they are well clear of the pack. This time, three teams are challenging for the title although in Chelsea’s case, they cannot afford to drop many more points. The next two months sees the top three play each other and rarely can these matches have been so important, any victories will see gaps emerge. So many times there have been ‘make or break’ weekends for the team that it still leaves me incredulous that pundits disbelieve the staying power of the squad. It might be that the relative inexperience of such situations tells this season and Arsenal finish third; they might win the whole shooting match, nothing is decided now. Whatever happens the sea-change that supporters wanted has happened and solid foundations are being laid for the future, the potential spoken of so often in the past is being delivered. Whether that results in trophies remains to be seen.

‘til Tomorrow.
 

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