On this day in 2006, Emmanuel Adebayor scored on his Arsenal debut against Birmingham.

Adebayor signed for Arsenal from Monaco on 13 January 2006 for a reported £3m and made his debut against Birmingham on 4 February. The striker scored after just 21 minutes – the first of 62 goals he would score for the Gunners – and Arsenal won 2-0 with Thierry Henry scoring the second.

The languid Togo international scored four goals in 10 games during his debut half-season in north London.

During Adebayor’s 2007/08 season, he managed to net 24 Premier League goals in 36 appearances and was proving to me a hugely capable striker who reminded many of a younger Kanu.

However, as we soon learned, Ade wasn’t really about the glory and when Manchester City came a-knocking with their stacks of cash in 2009, he couldn’t refuse. Our soon-to-be title rivals signed him on a five-year deal for a reported £25m.

Ade scored 14 Premiership goals in 26 appearances during his first season in Manchester but his second saw him struggle for game time and he was soon loaned out to Real Madrid, where he hardly got a look in, and then Spurs, where he managed to settle in quite well. In fact, he scored 42 goals in 114 appearances over all competitions for our north London rivals.

Ade signed for Spurs in 2012 and was released in 2015; the striker was then snapped up by Crystal Palace before signing for İstanbul Başakşehir in January.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH9J28PH1eM