Emmanuel Adebayor has spoken of his frustration at how Daniel Levy blocked his proposed January loan move to West Ham United but he insisted that he is now ready to focus on helping Tottenham Hotspur.
The Togolese striker has endured a difficult season, in which he has fallen from favour under Mauricio Pochettino and been booed by a section of the home support. Adebayor angered them with his comments after the 2-1 home loss to Stoke City on 9 November, when he said that Tottenham’s players were struggling under the pressure of a negative
atmosphere at White Hart Lane.
Adebayor said the club had agreed to loan him out during the winter window and the situation was clear from the beginning of the month. “We all know what was happening and what was going on,” he said. “For a lot of people they thought all these things [were] happening in the last 48 hours, which was not true.”
But when Adebayor said that he wanted to join West Ham, which appealed partly because he would have been able to stay in London with his family, he was disappointed at Levy’s refusal to agree. The chairman has been at loggerheads with West Ham over the acrimonious battle for the Olympic Stadium.
“The club decided to send me on loan, which I was pleased with,” Adebayor said in an interview with Sky Sports. “I was lucky enough to have five good clubs in my hand and I decided to go for three and, finally, when I chose the one I wanted to go to – unluckily, Mr Levy was against this, because there’s a rivalry in between the clubs. The club decided that I should stay and I’m very happy to stay at the club and do my job.”
Adebayor claimed that his post-Stoke comments had been taken out of context and he appealed for the matter to be consigned to the past. “A player playing with confidence is better than a player playing with doubt in his head,” he said. “If anyone thinks I am not appreciative of their support then that is a lie. They are the ones that make me run more, that make me want to score goals. Saluting a goal in front of the fans is one of the most beautiful moments in a player’s life.”
