Adebayor believes partnership can power Arsenal to greater heights

EMMANUEL Adebayor hopes his blossoming partnership with Robin van Persie will end Arsenal's three-year wait for silverware.
The duo combined to devastating effect in Tuesday night's 4-0 Champions League victory over Porto, plundering a brace each in a traumatic evening for the Portuguese champions.Van Persie claimed his first European goal for a year during an intelligent display and also set-up Adebayor, who replied in kind for the Dutchman.

Last season Adebayor was forced to shoulder Arsenal's goal-scoring burden by himself, largely thanks to injury-ravaged Van Persie's loss to the treatment room. But the Togo marksman is encouraged by the understanding they have developed so far this term."We are working hard for the team – he has got the same ambition as me," he said "We are here to help this team, we are here to help win something so I'm very pleased with the way he played against Porto."I gave him a pass and he gave me a pass. That shows there is a good relationship between the two of us. We are very happy and hopefully we can help this team win something this season."Porto were torn to shreds by some spellbinding play from Arsenal, with Theo Walcott continuing his irresistible form by galloping down the right flank at will.But for Arsène Wenger it was Cesc Fabregas who stood out, the Frenchman later hailing a "complete performance".Adebayor is also impressed by the midfielder's maturity. "Cesc played well, he kept the ball as normal. Fabregas always plays well – he is a very good footballer," he said."Don't get me wrong, he's a human being like everyone so sometimes everything gets difficult. But he is always there to show character, he is 21 and has got a lot of responsibility on his shoulders and he is dealing with that quite well."A strong performance was needed to dispel the storm clouds that had gathered following Saturday's shock defeat by Hull, and Arsenal delivered beyond expectation.Any lingering talk of crisis will dissolve should Sunderland be dispatched at the Stadium of Light on Saturday, and Adebayor is eager to build on Tuesday's rout."I hope we are back on track. Against Porto we showed good character, good personality and we played good football," he said. "We know that as soon as we put the ball on the ground and play our football, we have a lot of chances to win."That is what we did well against Porto. We are very pleased with our performance and hopefully we can do that again on Saturday."We are not playing to send a message, we are just playing to enjoy ourselves. We want to go as far as possible in the Champions League. We enjoy ourselves a lot on the pitch and we just want to keep on going, keep enjoying ourselves and see where we end up."Arsenal top Group G and Wenger expects his team to qualify for the knockout stages – but also demanded a return to winning ways on the domestic front."The most important thing was to respond quickly in a convincing way to the game against Hull and that's what we did," he said. "We were focused and I was happy with the attitude. Maybe we were too tense at the start of the game but we were focused and at this level that is vital."It's difficult to measure our best performance of the season but this was maybe our most complete performance."This is half the response I want. The other half comes on Saturday against Sunderland. I expect to win the group after this."

By Duncan Bech