In the last few years, Manchester City have bought some of the world's best players and have turned themselves into a real force in European football. With the likes of Yaya Toure, David Silva and Sergio Aguero, City are now always in the discussion for Premier League winners - which they have now been twice - and even the Champions League.
However, it was not always this way. It was not until 2009 when City, having been taken over by the wealthy Sheikh Mansour the previous summer, started to flex their financial muscles. On this day in 2009 City made the most eyebrow-raising transfer of the window so far, with Emmanuel Adebayor joining from fellow Premier League side Arsenal for £25m.
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It represented good business for the Gunners, who bought the player from Monaco three years previously for just £3m. They had made a hefty profit, but with Adebayor's form during his time at the club they had also lost one of their better players to an emerging rival. Arsene Wenger said that Adebayor could be replaced by returning players from injury, such as Tomas Rosicky and Eduardo.
While at Arsenal, Adebayor was a prolific forward as well as a controversial figure at times. He had the knack of scoring vital goals - such as his brace in the September 2007 North London derby - and equally was found guilty of silly things, along the lines of his League Cup red card against Chelsea for allegedly swinging at Frank Lampard.
It was his goalscoring record, which in the league for the Gunners was almost a goal every two games, that encouraged City to spend such a big sum of money as well as £170,000 per week in wages for the Togolese. There was even controversy regarding the move, with reports the day before claiming that his agent had tried to engineer late moves to both Chelsea and Manchester United.
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However, it was City where he ended up and he very quickly went about trying to justify the amount of money that the Citizens had paid. He scored in his first four matches for the club to become only the fifth player, of now six, to do so. Furthermore, that the fourth game was the heated affair against the side he had just opted to leave. Adebayor, being Adebayor, did not shy away from any drama.
It was never really in doubt that the African forward would score in the 4-2 win at the City of Manchester Stadium, but few would have predicted the way he would react to it. In a move that simultaneously attempted to endear himself to his new fans and stick two fingers up at the old ones for their response to his leaving, Adebayor ran the full length of the pitch to celebrate on his knees in front of the Arsenal fans.
In the end, things did not work out as well for Adebayor as he might have liked, as more and more players started to join the club in the ensuing years. He ended with 15 goals from 34 league games before being loaned to Real Madrid, Tottenham Hotspur and finally joining Spurs permanently two summers ago.
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Matt Domm
