Manchester City are ready to offload wantaway striker Emmanuel Adebayor cheaply to Tottenham in order to bring in Arsenal striker Robin van Persie, with the Dutchman unlikely to sign for the Citizens with Adebayor still around at the club.
The two frontmen, former teammates at Arsenal, have been involved in a long-standing feud which started in Semtember 2009, when Adebayor, then playing for City, raked his studs across Van Persie’s face during a Premier League encounter.
Van Persie followed that with a strongly-worded statement accusing Adebayor of trying to ‘intentionally hurt him’, along with it calling Adebayor’s stamp ‘mindless and malicious’.
City, aware of the tension between the two, realise that Van Persie will not join unless Adebayor is sold, and are trying to fast track the Togolese international’s sale to the Spurs.
The Spurs however are not ready to reach the princely £170,000-a-week wages Adebayor earns at City, which is proving to be a snag in negotiations between the two sides. Daniel Levy however believes that a massive signing-on fee for the striker can help Adebayor ignore the drop in his salary to fit the club’s pay structure.
Adebayor’s move away from Eastlands is set to help the Citizens as well, who currently have seven senior strikers in their squad, and will have to trim their wage bill before making a reported £20 million offer for Van Persie.
So…smells like a conspiracy between Spuds and Cityh against our Gunners. Interesting to see what RVP will do because it ain’t over til it’s over!!!