Will You Miss Him?

Just in case anyone misunderstood my comment about Stuart Taylor yesterday afternoon, and I accept some people from Manchester might have trouble understanding plain English, let me make it clear. I can fully understand why Manchester City want to sign a goalkeeper once regarded by Bob Wilson as the natural successor to David Seaman in the Arsenal goal, but I don't understand why said goalkeeper would want to move from one team's bench to another's. Let's be charitable and say perhaps the city of Manchester appeals to Stuart and leave it there.

"BBC Sport understands...", "Sky Sports understands...", "The Guardian understands..." 

These are phrases frequently used and I think they probably get up people's noses a little, it's an unneccessary coda to the story. You know, it might be true, it might not we all understand that. But if you wanted to go and tell a girl that your mate fancied her (and how schoolboy would that be?), you wouldn't go up to her and say "I understand my mate thinks you are, er, you know, rather gorgeous"- would you? 

Today there's a lot of it about though, the BBC got in on it a little bit late but,

"Manchester City are in negotiations to sign Arsenal striker Emmanuel Adebayor, BBC Sport understands."

Over at the Guardian, things are progressing at lightning speed,

"Manchester City are on the verge of completing a deal to sign Emmanuel Adebayor from Arsenal, the Guardian understands. The two clubs have agreed a fee, believed to be closer to Arsenal's asking price of £25m than City's original offer of £20m, and the striker is in Manchester discussing terms on a five-year contract worth between £150,000-170,000 a week."

Wow. Hold the phone. We're still getting the money we wanted last summer, or as close to it as possible, Greedybayor's doubling his wages and Manchester City are getting a world class striker. Everyone's a winner.

Oh.

One suspects that City may come to rue the day they offered Emmanuel Adebayor £600,000 per month to stand around in offside positions between three and quarter to five every Saturday. But that is to play down his good points and one must accept, however appaling Ade's attitude at times, this season that he is a good player. You don't get to be paid the money he has been earning at the club he's been earning it with without some kind of talent. But I think the reason he was popular amongst Arsenal fans was his willingness to work for the team, not his non existent Thierry Henryness, and once that work ethic began to go, well.... Were there signs of his attitude in the spat with Bendtner at Tottenham a year and a half back, the subsequent refusal to pass the ball to him at Birmingham- a piece of selfishness for which the team paid dearly and even that ludicrous celebration at Liverpool after Theo Walcott ran the length of the Anfield pitch to put the ball on a silver platter for him?

Reading a Cultured Left Foot this morning, he feels that we will miss Ade's line leading capability and there is a fair argument for that. Nobody except Nicklas Bendtner, in my opinion, has the capability of leading the line, holding the ball up and bringing others into play. Maybe Robin and Eduardo can do it, but they lack the aerial ability of Bendtner and you wouldn't want to rely on them across a season. Bendtner, it is only fair to state, also resembled a pinball machine as much as an international footballer throughout a large part of the winter- can he make the same kind of leap Alex Song did last season? I don't think he's got as far to go actually.

Whilst I'm on the subject,  people sometimes wonder about my predeliction for the big Dane. Granted he hasn't torn up any trees yet, but I stand firm in my belief that RvP, due to injuries and what not, has yet to really become the player he should be. Yes, he can be very exciting to watch, in a way that Bendtner never will be, but I think Bendtner (still only 21, don't forget) will turn out to be the more efficent player of the two- an Alan Smith to RvP's Paul Merson maybe...

Finally, as ESPN have now taken over Setanta duties- and they deserved to go into administration just for employing Craig Burley- their 5.15 kick offs have now become 5.30 ones. Which is handy for Gabs. My Everton supporting friend, Kev, was hoping to have a belated birthday bash centred around watching the game together, a risky plan given that if the experience is as previous Arsenal Everton games have been (I remember the 4-1 in 2004/05), we might end up not speaking to each other. Anyway, Gabs the part time Gooner, is at Griffin Park for Brentford's game against Brighton, hopefully the delay in the evening kick off will give him time to join us.

I accept that may be no consolation for anyone trying to get back from Merseyside after the game...