Adebayor beanie hat row cost AVB his job as Spurs manager| News |

published 3 January 2014

ANDRE VILLAS-BOAS may have lost his job at Spurs because of a row with striker Emmanuel Adebayor over a beanie hat, it has been claimed. The Portuguese coach was sacked by chairman Daniel Levy last month after a string of poor results but at the time it was suggested that Adebayor, who has been a divisive influence at almost every club he has played for, was somehow involved. Several papers claimed that central to the breakdown of the relationship between manager and chairman was a disagreement over the striker, who AVB refused to pick, instead opting to play Roberto Soldado on his own up front. Now, the Daily Mail claims to know why Villas-Boas left Adebayor out in the cold. "At the beginning of the season, the Spurs striker walked into a team meeting wearing a hat and the Portuguese boss asked him to remove it; a request Adebayor declined... the pair exchanged heated words and during the argument Villas-Boas vowed not to play the striker," says the paper. "Adebayor played no part in the season as a result of that clash, except for one appearance as a half-time substitute during the 6-0 humbling by Manchester City." Adebayor's seamless reintegration into the team since the departure of AVB suggests that there was a personal issue between the two men. The Togolese international has scored four goals in five games since Tim Sherwood took over, and he is set to be unleashed against his old club, Arsenal, in the FA Cup on Saturday evening. If the story is true, Bleacher Report notes that it would represent one of the "more obscure divides between a player and his manager in recent memory". However, it fits with AVB's growing reputation as a bad man manager. "Villas-Boas came to Tottenham with a reputation for poor squad management," claims the Mail. "He banished Nicolas Anelka and Alex at Chelsea and upset many of the more established players at the club."