Man City to Appeal Adebayor Charge!

Last week, Manchester City accepted the charge handed down by the English FA to Emmanuel Adebayor after his rash challenge on Arsenal's Robin Van Persie in their Premier League encounter. Adebayor and City did not hand in an appeal against the three match ban that the English FA handed out. All well and good as, from my point of view, Adebayor did rake his cleat along Van Persie's face. In light of the game, match official Mark Clattenberg admitted that if he had seen the incident he would have sent Adebayor off. Charge one accepted.
A second improper conduct charge is to be handed out to Adebayor in the coming weeks. Man City today stated that they will be appealing this charge as they believe they have a case against it. After scoring against his old club, Adebayor after he ran the whole length of the field to celebrate scoring in front of the Arsenal fans. The incident caused a huge riot in the stands, and could so easily have got even further out of hand. In fact, one of the stewards had to be rushed to hospital after getting stamped on. I'm not sure why Man City would even think about appealing this one! What Adebayor did was senseless. To score and celebrate in front of the opposing fans on the same end where the goal is scored is somewhat ok. But to sprint (and I mean sprint, no one could catch Adebayor) the length of the field, to the other goal, and slide on your knees in front of the fans to celebrate in kind of brainless! There was a lot of emotion at the game, and Adebayor did have to put up with a lot of slack from the Arsenal fans. On top of that, add the fact that some of his former teammates would not shake his hand before kick off and it raises the level even more. One thing to note on this is that I have played at the top level of soccer, and been at stadiums where fans booed me up and down the field. Yet I never even thought about celebrating like this. The right response is to score the goal and celebrate with your fans and teammates. I think it would have been more effective for Adebayor to celebrate with his new teammates in front of his new fans, and maybe even kiss the City crest to show his loyalty to his new club. Instead he choose to shun them and be an 'individual'!
Lets hope Adebayor enjoys his few weeks of rest, and comes back with a better attitude!

Captain Van Persie bags a brace in FA Cup win

Robin Van Persie helped Arsenal avoid a potential banana skin in their FA Cup tie with Plymouth today. With so many scalps in todays round of games, Arsenal will be pleased to have won comprehensively 3-1. Van Persie scored the first and third goals for the Gunners. With their dissapointing league form leaving them 10 points off the top, Arsenal will be looking to make the final of the FA Cup for the first time since they won the tournament in 2005.

In todays game, Van Persie was wearing Adidas Predator Powerswerve White Metallic/Metallic Silver/Black. In recent weeks, including his goal versus Liverpool two weeks back, he wore the Indigo/silver/pool version. These are two of three new designs Adidas has released recently.The Powerswerve range is one of the top cleats on the market at the moment, battling with the Nike Mercurial Vapor IV range.The Powerswerve is a very classy cleat, with many advantages over other top brands. For instance, the PowerPulse insole, that has an additional 10grams of Tungsten, adds increased shot power by sending the Tungsten from back to front of the cleat as you swing through.The introduction of SmartFoam technology and a re-designed PowerPulse system gives this boot increased ball spin for accuracy and masses of power when you need it. Weighing in at 11.2 oz. with PowerPulse, or 10 oz. without.

In other FA Cup news, Mark Hughes and his Man City side were humiliated in a 3-0 home loss to Notthingham Forest. Chelsea were held at home 1-1 to a last minute goal by Southend. Premier League new boys Stoke City were beaten 2-0 to lowly Hartlepool United, while Conference side Torquay United pulled off a good 1-0 win over Championship side Blackpool.