• Stamp on Van Persie was deliberate, says Arsenal
manager
• 'I was shocked at animosity in his attitude towards Arsenal'
Emmanuel Adebayor has been charged for his goal
celebration in front of the Arsenal fans during Saturday's 4-2
victory.
Arsène 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 Wenger, the Arsenal manager, after he learned that
Adebayor had been charged by the Football Association with violent
and improper conduct. "You ask 100 people; 99 will say it's very
bad and the hundredth 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
begged to differ. "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.
"In England, you have many cases where the players leave in,
although less now than 10 years ago. You have some challenges 10
years ago where if you did that in the street, you go to jail.
"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 Fábregas.
"I was surprised that 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 was asked whether he saw any similarities between the
Birmingham City defender Martin Taylor's tackle which broke the leg
of Eduardo da Silva 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," he
replied. "In Eduardo's case, you have more doubt than in this
case."
Van Persie issued a statement in the hours after the City game,
in which he rounded on Adebayor in the strongest of terms. "Of
course I back Robin; in football everybody is free to have an
opinion," said Wenger. "If somebody stamps on your head in that
way, you wouldn't say, 'Thank you very much, can I turn the other
cheek'. Only Jesus Christ did that."
