Emmanuel Adebayor: Daniel Levy made everything complicated at Tottenham
• Crystal Palace striker faces former club on Sunday in FA Cup
• Adebayor says his ‘relationship with Mauricio Pochettino was beautiful’
Emmanuel Adebayor, seen here in 2011 alongside Daniel Levy, claims he did not have a good relationship with the Tottenham chairman. Photograph: Glyn Kirk/AFP/Getty Images
Guardian sport
Thursday 18 February 2016 14.15 GMT Last modified on Thursday 18 February 2016 14.58 GMT
Emmanuel Adebayor has hit out at Daniel Levy, saying he did not have a good relationship with the
Tottenham Hotspur chairman who “made everything complicated” for the striker when he was at the club.
Adebayor had his £100,000-a-week Tottenham contract
cancelled in September and joined Crystal Palace
as a free agent in January, and looks set to start against his former club when the two clubs meet in the FA Cup fifth round at White Hart Lane this weekend.
Adebayor previously turned down a move to Palace in January 2015 in favour of West Ham but saw a deadline-day loan deal collapse
after Levy apparently vetoed it at the last minute.
“With the club itself, it wasn’t a good relationship with the chairman, Daniel Levy, as he made everything complicated,” claimed the striker. “But at the end of the day, I know where I am from and if you want something, you have to stand strong for it, and I stand strong for what I think. People will judge you but I know what I have been through in my life and what I stand for.”
Adebayor was a regular in the Tottenham starting XI when Mauricio Pochettino was first appointed in 2014 and gradually fell out of favour but the Togolese insisted there was no bad blood between him and Spurs manager.
“My relationship with Mauricio was beautiful. I think we had a very, very good relationship with man-to-man conversations. We always talked but at the time he told me: ‘Emmanuel, I can’t count on you anymore’ and I understood that. I realised my time at Tottenham was over and I moved on.”
Adebayor scored his first goal for Palace in
their 2-1 defeat by Watford last Saturday, and appears to be happy with his move across London.
“Today, Tottenham are happy – they are playing well – and I am happy playing for Palace. We both have moved on as a club and as a player,” he said.
http://www.theguardian.com/football...erything-complicated-tottenham-crystal-palace