Emmanuel Adebayor takes shot at Arsenal; Nigel de Jong says no regrets over Alonso Kung-fu tackle
Arsenal’s former striker Emmanuel Adebayor has once again taken a shot at his former club by saying that Manchester City is now a bigger club than Arsenal.
The Togo striker played at Arsenal for 3 seasons, and was offloaded by manager Arsene Wenger in 2009. Adebayor said that City has taken over Arsenal as a bigger club in the league, and it is only a matter of time before they overtake Arsenal in terms of league position.
Manchester City spent 130 million pounds this season to buy several superstars from the footballing world, and Adebayor believes that his team’s squad is far superior to most of the clubs in English football - and definitely better than Arsenal.
The African front-man said that looking at the depth City have now, they have a great chance of winning the league this season. He said that even though the fact that most of the players are new at the club and would take some time to adapt may go against them, manager Roberto Mancini is a very clever man and would be able to make use of all the players in his team to an optimum level.
Adebayor said that the start of the 2010-11 Premier League season has been not ideal, but there is a lot of time and a lot of games in the league to improve on that. He said that when he was at Arsenal, he gave the club his all and was not rewarded accordingly, but at City he feels important and the manager also believes in him.
The comments did not come as a surprise, as he has had a love-hate relationship with Arsenal ever since he was let go by the club in 2009.
Meanwhile, Manchester City player Nigel de Jong has said that he still does not have any regrets on the tackle he made against Spain’s Xabi Alonso in the 2010 World Cup final.
De Jong slammed his foot right in the chest of Alonso in an effort to get the ball. It was termed as a horrific Kung-fu tackle. De Jong was only given a yellow card after the foul, and many believe that a red card should have been the verdict for the offense.
De Jong also faced criticism after the final from all corners, but the Manchester City midfielder maintains that he did not mean to hurt Alonso in any way and all he wanted was to get the ball. Hence, he should not be criticized for the incident.
De Jong said that the incident did take attention away from his overall World Cup performance, and the fact that he played an important role in getting his team to the final of the World Cup final was ignored. De Jong said that the 2010 World Cup campaign was his most memorable time in football, and despite losing the final, he would term it as his greatest accomplishment in the game.
De Jong said that after the final, he did apologize to Alonso, and the Spaniard also said that he knew there was no malice intended from his part.
A few weeks after the World Cup, FIFA handed both teams (Netherlands and Spain) fines for a very heated final.
The final was officiated by English referee Howard Webb and he gave away 14 yellow cards and one red card in the match. It was termed as the most heated World Cup final ever. After the final, many former players and pundits criticized (mainly) the Dutch team and said that the team renowned for playing total football came out to play ugly physical football instead.
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