Micah Richards reveals Aston Villa had Tottenham ace 'in a shirt' and signed before shock U-turn

Emmanuel Adebayor enjoyed a prolific and eventful career which featured spells at Arsenal, Manchester City, Real Madrid and Tottenham, among many others.

And it almost included a stint at Aston Villa, who were on the brink of landing the Togo star in 2015. Tim Sherwood, who had managed Adebayor, was at the helm and thought he had clinched a huge signing.

Adebayor, then 31, had gone as far as posing for pictures in a Villa shirt before a sudden change of heart, recalled Micah Richards in the latest Match of the Day Top 10 podcast.

“He came to Villa, he signed, we had him in a shirt,” recalled the then Villa defender. “Tim Sherwood was the manager, he’d had him at Spurs and he said he wanted to get the best out of him. He signed, got the picture of him in a shirt. The next day he said ‘it’s not for me’. He just changed his mind!”

Adebayor was released by Spurs in September 2015 and went on to have a brief spell at Crystal Palace in 2016. Spells in Turkey and Paraguay followed before he called time on his playing career.