Pochettino claims no rift with Emmanuel Adebayor

Despite not having featured for Tottenham Hotspur in over a month, Emmanuel Adebayor is still in Mauricio Pochettino's plans. The Spurs manager denied that there is any sort of a rift with the Togolese striker in comments to the media ahead of Sunday's match against West Ham.

"My relationship with Ade? It's a good relationship, the only problem is I need to pick 18 players for every game.

"Now I am picking (Harry) Kane or (Roberto) Soldado but the relationship is good."

The relationship is good, but that doesn't mean that Adebayor's still in Poche's plans. Ade hasn't featured for Spurs since the 2-1 loss to Leicester City in the FA Cup last month, and it doesn't appear likely that he'll be in the side against West Ham either, despite both Harry Kane and Robert Soldado playing against Fiorentina yesterday evening.

Spurs tried like hell to offload Ade to another club during the January transfer window, but the only viable team that showed interest was West Ham, and Daniel Levy reportedly nixed the deal in order not to strengthen a direct rival for fourth place. Poche's quotes are most definitely coach-speak. I'm sure he probably does have a good relationship with Ade – he seems like an affable guy who gets along well with (most) of his players – but even if that's true it's certainly not something he's going to admit to the media. And also that doesn't mean that he's going to play them if he thinks other players are better.  Adebayor is still probably gone as soon as they can find someone that will pay his wages.