After weeks of the two clubs releasing statements saying how close they were to signing the player, Barca and Milan look like they will miss out on Arsenal’s 30-goal hero after he declared he wanted to stay at the Emirates Stadium.

Emmanuel Adebayor was expected to leave Arsenal in a £25million deal for either the San Siro or Camp Nou, with even his agent, Vincenzo Morabito, yesterday claiming a deal with Milan was “80% certain”. However, today the Togolese striker looks to have scuppered any chance of signing him:

I’ve three more years with Arsenal, I have a good contract, we have a good team there and I’m playing for one of the biggest teams in the world.

The most important thing for me is to keep on enjoying my football. I’m staying at Arsenal.

He went on to explain that his decision was not motivated by the £120,000 a week he was supposedly demanding and that he was happy in the Premiership:

I was born in Togo so I never cared about playing for money, my happiness was to play to enjoy myself. That’s what I’ve been doing until now.

You can see people changing clubs because of money, because they want a change of atmosphere or to get their names in the big leagues. I just play football to enjoy myself. I play because I love it.

He also insisted he wanted to stay in London and concentrate on building on last seasons title challenge:

We all have the same ideas and we all want to achieve something. We have a good boss which is Arsene Wenger, he tries to bring this atmosphere to the dressing room where we feel like brothers and like family.

Those are the reasons that give us a chance to play the football we play. We play good football, now we look forward to winning trophies.

This statement may come as a relief to Arsenal fans, who would undoubtedly find it hard to replace their 30-goal hero. However, with his agent saying a deal was 80% done, do agents play too big a role in drumming up stories about star’s moves, simply to earn some money?