Having been to the Ashburton Grove Cup game against Real Madrid, I was pretty surprised at some of the headlines that have been floating around in the match reports, mainly concerning a certain Togolese member of the squad and some of them do seem pretty baffling.

Take the Daily Telegraph, a paper not exactly known for elaborate-over-the-top headlines, where the headline read ‘Emmanuel Adebayor rekindles love affair with Arsenal fans after scoring winner against Real Madrid.’ He took a penalty against a Real Madrid side in what was essentially a meaningless friendly designed to get players fit for the upcoming season against a side of stature, rather than some Austrian team with the same footballing ability as Torquay United. That and he missed at least three chances that any striker deserving £120k a week should put away without second thought.

Obviously I’m glad Arsenal won the match at least but in all honesty did many Arsenal fans lose a great deal of collective sleep after the Juve game? If he scores winning goals against the likes of Real Madrid in the Champions League or United and CSKA Fulham in the league this season, then of course that would be a good way of going about trying to win back our respect. But scoring from the spot and missing three sitters in a friendly certainly isn’t enough to win fans over again or rekindle any ‘love affairs’ as the aforementioned broadsheet put it. I suppose you have to start somewhere but there’s still a long way to go for Ade before he rekindles any ‘love affairs’ with Arsenal fans. Even his badge-kissing didn’t cut it, although that’s become a very empty gesture since Alan Smith’s move from Leeds to Man United in 2004 amongst others.

Before the game I wasn’t sure how I’d react to Adebayor yesterday. It was pretty obvious he was going to be involved in the game in some shape or form today and he wouldn’t be booed the most by any means given that Arjen Robben, Gabriel Heinze and Ruud van Diverboy were in the team and also likely to feature at some point too. But the way Adebayor and his low-life parasite of an agent have behaved over the summer with their ridiculous wage demands and heavy flirting with other clubs does leave a bitter taste in the mouth, as did Cashley’s famous hotel meeting with Kenyon and Maureen Yeo. And fans never looked at him in the same way for the remaining 18 months he was at the club.

I have come to accept that footballers these days are becoming more and more like mercenaries, although this isn’t such a new thing as some people make out. They are humans and when offered a new job with a bigger wage packet, better pension scheme, etc by and large humans tend to take that job offer. And for someone like Adebayor, a man who knows what it’s like to have no money at all, it is hard to tell him that money isn’t that important.

That said, his wage demands after one good season was an utter joke and Ade seemed perfectly content to let the parasites (agents) do all the talking when he was on his holidays and then when every possible move fell through he comes out and denies everything, claiming he has no idea what’s been going on. Sorry but if Osama bin Laden can be kept informed of world events from a cave, then Ade must have had a slight inkling of what was happening back here at least. Either that or Ade likes spending his holidays living under a rock in deepest Outer Mongolia.

But all that said, he did get 30 goals (albeit that 20% of those goals were against Derby) last season and with VanNurseme’s constant injuries and Eduardo not likely to be back till the end of October, Arsenal do need all the firepower they can get and if they wear the Arsenal shirt then they have my support for the 90 minutes, at least.

If we were to give Ade the benefit of the doubt over his conduct this summer then the resulting situation could be very prosperous. I know I slated him earlier for missing three sitters but other than that he did pretty well yesterday. He linked up well with Van Persie, showed some good touches and stretched the Madrid defence at times. His improvement last season was very welcome and if he can carry on that progress this season and better himself even further then that would be brilliant for all involved.

If fans continue to boo him for the crime of being a modern footballer with crap PR skills, then the chances are it may affect his game and if he were to stay for the foreseeable future then the club would be wasting money on a player who was underperforming and he would probably end up leaving for a knock-down price, rather than the rumoured £35m valuation that Wenger put on him this summer.

However, if we get behind him and see him carry on the improvement that he made last season then it can only benefit the team, whatever happens- if he stays after next summer and tries to justify his wage demands on the pitch then Arsenal benefit from his goals and his overall team play and if he decides to leave then Arsenal stand a better chance of clubs willing to pay £35m, especially with Wenger’s transfer know-how.

Am I the only one who was over the moon that Wenger convinced Barca to take Hleb off the club’s hands for as much as £12million? With some of that £35m I for one have every faith that Wenger could buy a more than adequate replacement, just as he did when he brought in a struggling young winger called Thierry Henry for less than half the price he sold Le Incredible Sulk for. In short, I’ve come to realise that whilst showing Ade how pissed off we are with him is very tempting and almost a gut instinct given his antics this summer, backing him on the pitch could very well lead to a win-win situation for all concerned.