Emmanuel Adebayor, making a rare start for moneybags Manchester City, scored his first goals of the season last night to secure a 3-1 win over Lech Poznan and give his club an excellent chance of qualifying from Europe League Group A
Emmanuel Adebayor, making a rare start for moneybags Manchester City, scored his first goals of the season last night to secure a 3-1 win over Lech Poznan and give his club an excellent chance of qualifying from Europe League Group A.
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| Right: Manchester City's Emmanuel Adebayor celebrates after scoring his second goal against Poznan at the City of Manchester Stadium last night. Pics/Getty Images, AFP |
Spoilt for choice, City boss Roberto Mancini brought in David Silva and Shaun Wright-Phillips and benched Carlos Tevez and James Milner with French veteran Patrick Vieira replacing Gareth Barry ufffd but it was Adebayor who bagged the plaudits as he plundered a fine hat-trick ufffd his club's first ever in Europe.
"I'm very happy, very delighted... I'm training hard every day," said Adebayor, keen to feature in a weekend Premier League tussle with former club Arsenal.
Poznan had held Juventus to a 3-3 draw in their opening group match, and Slawomir Peszko came close to giving the Poles a shock early lead.
But Vieira set up Adebayor to draw first blood in the 13th minute, the Togolese forward spinning round and then firing a low shot beyond Poznan goalkeeper Jasmin Buric. Poor marking then saw the former Arsenal man elude his marker to power home the second with a header on 25 minutes.
Poznan came into the match having lost three league games on the bounce to plunge into the bottom four. But spurred on by 5,000 visiting fans, they made a game of it after the break and Joel Tshibamba fired them back into the contest five minutes after the restart. City, who were level with the Poles on four points from their opening two encounters, needed the win to go clear, promptly stepped up a gear. And, after Tshibamba had first missed a sitter, Adebayor volleyed in from close range after a superb pass from Silva.
