It was always going to happen at Manchester City in fact you could see it coming from a mile away. With so many big names carrying hefty price tags and egos bigger than their already ludicrous sized pay cheques it’s an impossible task to keep them all smiling. With a host of City stars now facing the axe Roberto Mancini has dumped the unwanted in reserves until they can engineer moves away from the club. However one man who hasn’t taken the Italians decision with a pinch of salt is Emmanuel Adebayor.
The Togolese striker, who cost the club £25 million from Arsenal two years ago and picks up a cool £140,000 a week, has gone AWOL and twice failed to show up for training after being omitted from the clubs American tour. To top it all off he also attacked a number of club officials and insisted he’d train by himself until he was sold. The likes of Craig Bellamy and Shay Given, who have both had fallouts with Mancini, suffered the same treatment as Adebayor but still managed to turn up to training with the reserve squad.
I think the behaviour displayed by Adebayor is utterly disgraceful and is indicative of today’s modern footballer. What right has he got to disobey and take for granted his employers the people that pay his extortionate wages and give him a life millions of people can only dream of. After all he is an employee and in the real world any normal person would be fired immediately if they were to replicate his behaviour. The striker might have some credibility if he’d actually put in consistent performances whilst on the field but his attitude and idle demeanour have turned a lot of people against him. If he’s not careful he’ll be identified as a troublemaker who could lead to clubs shunning him when it comes to a potential transfer.
A lot of people might say he hasn’t been the same since terrorists attacked the Togo players last year whilst they sat in their team bus during the African Cup of Nations. Whilst that was a terrible atrocity and will no doubt leave long lasting mental scars. It certainly has changed his character and demeanour but isn’t a justifiable reason to flippantly defy your employers and take for granted what they have given you.
What really angers me is that on his day Adebayor is a fantastic player and a genuine goal scorer. We all saw how he stepped into Henry’s boots and delivered goal after goal for Arsenal. But in my view as soon as he started to become lauded week after week his ego grew and he got a bit too big for his boots. Now at City we’re seeing the real Adebayor come out. Fact of the matter is that he, nor anyone else, is bigger than the football club because they’ll be here a long time after Adebayor has left.
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It’s time that players started realising that they can’t continue to think they are anything more than just very well played employee’s of a football club. Running around for 90 minutes and kicking a ball doesn’t give them the right to disobey and make selfish decisions to garner attention to their ‘plight’. Adebayor like so many others isn’t setting a good example to youngsters and upcoming footballers with his obscene behaviour.
He’s paid handsomely to do a job many people would chop their own arm off to have and he blatantly disregards the meaning of what it means to play football at the highest level. Fining him two weeks wages won’t solve the problem. Making an example out of him and taking a firmer stance is the only way clubs can take back the control players have now seized. I have zero sympathy for Adebayor and I hope Man City take the hard-line stance when he does finally show up for training at Eastlands.
