Tottenham Hotspur striker Emmanuel Adebayor in an interview with Sky Sports revealed what led to the feud between him and the former Spurs boss, Andre Villas-Boas.
According to Adebayor, he told AVB his tactics do not go in line with what obtains in big European teams where he has plied his trade and thus won’t help the team achieve its aim. The Togole striker was exiled from Villas-Boas’s side during a poor run of form which eventually led to the Portuguese’s sacking in December.
He said: “I told him: ‘Your ideas will not help the team. I have had a chance to play for a lot of top clubs in my career and I know how it’s supposed to be. I told him one on one and he didn’t want to listen, and then I told him in front of the group. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe it was a good one, maybe it was a bad one. I don’t know, but I spoke my mind.”
The former Arsenal, Manchester City and Real Madrid striker has since returned to the starting line-up under new Tottenham boss Tim Sherwood and scored six goals in 10 matches – a run he puts down to a desire to prove doubters wrong.
“I remember in early September when I went back home and did an interview saying it would not take me long to be the number one striker again in Tottenham, a lot of fans, not everyone, jumped on that [saying] ‘Oh, who does he think he is. These are the things that give me more motivation and these are the things that keep me going. When you wake up and you realise that there are a lot of haters out there and you want to prove them wrong, you just keep focused and keep doing what you love best, which is playing football, scoring goals and having fun.”
