PREMIER LEAGUE:ARSENE WENGER has told Mark Hughes that he is the only man who believes in Emmanuel Adebayor's innocence, as he laid into the Manchester City striker for the challenge that left Robin van Persie dazed and bloodied at Eastlands on Saturday.
“It looks very bad,” said the Arsenal manager after he learned Adebayor had been charged by the English FA with violent and improper conduct. “You ask 100 people; 99 will say it’s very bad and the 100th will be Mark Hughes.”
Adebayor’s violent conduct charge is for the stamp that caught his former strike partner Van Persie on the side of the face during City’s 4-2 victory. The improper conduct charge relates to the manner in which he celebrated the scoring of his goal in front of the travelling Arsenal fans. He faces a three-match ban for the former and an additional one or two games for the latter.
Hughes, the City manager, has defended Adebayor, insisting that there was “no malice” behind the challenge on Van Persie but Wenger disagreed. “Did you watch it?” he said, when asked whether there had been any malicious intent, as Van Persie has already claimed. “I shouldn’t have to answer that question.
“But you watched it, you have watched football for years, you know as well as me what a player can do. You can always ease off or not ease off. I played football and I know exactly, in a fraction of a second, when you master well your body, where you leave in or you move out. You know exactly at that fraction, ‘I can injure somebody or I can not injure somebody’ and you ease off or you leave in.
“Of course we are disappointed,” Wenger added, “because when you go to the head, you are always scared for people. You want to be protected, and this is Adebayor or anybody else. I think it was a very bad challenge, surprisingly bad. I didn’t expect him to do that, but the referee should have sent him off for his challenge on Cesc Fabregas.
“I was surprised there was such animosity in Adebayor’s attitude towards Arsenal because Arsenal was great to him. He will realise that in a few years. That’s why I was deeply surprised and shocked. It has now become the case of Man City and the FA and we do not want to interfere in that. But you ask me what my opinion is, did he do it on purpose? I say ‘yes’.”
Wenger denied any similarities between the Birmingham City defender Martin Taylor’s tackle which broke the leg of Eduardo in February 2008 and Adebayor’s challenge on Van Persie. “In Eduardo’s case, it was an act of clumsiness and this time, I don’t think the two things are comparable.”
Van Persie issued a statement after the City game in which he castigated Adebayor. “Of course I back Robin, in football everybody is free to have an opinion,” said Wenger. “If somebody stamps on your head, you wouldn’t say, ‘Thank you very much, can I turn the other cheek’. Only Jesus Christ did that.”
Adebayor has until 6pm today to respond to the violent conduct charge. Van Persie’s behaviour during the City game is now the subject of a police investigation after he allegedly swore at City supporters near the corner flag after scoring to tie the game at 1-1.
GuardianService
