Emmanuel Adebayor has claimed that Arsenal struggle to handle pressure when sides play with a heavy pressing tactic.
The Tottenham striker will be looking to get one over his former side at White Hart Lane and believes that Arsenal’s squad lack players who are willing to battle for the ball.
Adebayor insists that none of the Tottenham players will need any extra motivation when we do battle with our biggest rivals, it’s good to see Adebayor acknowleding this fact and hopefully he can back up his words with a performance which we expect from the big front man.
He told the Daily Mirror: “Arsenal are a good team when they have the ball. When they don’t, they are not that good. When you put them under pressure, they can’t handle it.
“They don’t have a lot of physical presence. Apart from Flamini, I don’t see anyone who puts themselves into a proper battle.
“Rosicky is not that type of player, Cazorla is not the type of player who defends. Arteta is trying to do it, but that’s not his job.
“They don’t have anybody who can say, ‘if I have to kick, I will kick. If we have to fight, I will put myself at the front of it’. That’s how we have to play. Push them and force them to make errors.”
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He said: “In some games, some players, including me – I have to include myself – we have lacked that personality. We have lacked that desire and things have gone wrong.
“That’s why we have to look into the mirror and say, ‘OK, I judge myself, I didn’t play well today, but in the next game I will be better’.
“On Sunday I don’t even think we will need a team meeting.
“There are some games where you have to give a little bit of motivation to the players. But we know how good we are at home when it comes to Arsenal and we won’t have to motivate anybody for this game.”
Adebayor added: “The is the game that everybody will be talking about in London from this point,” said the striker, “Tottenham v Arsenal: The north London derby.
“So I cannot see anybody telling me, ‘Manu, you have to run. You have to give 100 per cent’.
“No one will need to tell me that. I know. And people like Aaron Lennon, who has been here for ages, you won’t have to tell players like him anything either. He knows how big it is for the club and the fans. To be honest with you, we are all looking forward to it.”
What do you make of Adebayor’s comments? Have your say below.
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