Former Gunner Adebayor the new hero for Spurs

Once upon a rivalry, Emmanuel Adebayor would have needed an armoured tank to get down the Tottenham High Road.

Now he only needs a sedan chair - and just two games into his Spurs career there are 35,000 volunteers to carry it.

As the rout of nine-man Liverpool unravelled from a meaningful contest into shadow boxing, Adebayor’s two goals on his home debut - just reward for a dynamic contribution - left £35million England striker Andy Carroll firmly in the shade.

Even before Charlie Adam and Martin Skrtel’s red cards, and he was put out to pasture on either flank, Carroll was getting less change out of Ledley King than a fruit machine.

Titles are not won or lost in mid-September, but the chemistry between strikers is often well-established by the time horse chestnuts have shed their conkers, and right now Carroll and Luis Suarez go together like choc ice and chips.

Where Carroll could offer only submissive body language, barren scavenging in the centre circle, hands on hips and plaintive looks towards the bench, Adebayor was the ultimate target man.

A glorious chance to decorate his home debut with a goal went begging after just two minutes, shovelled wide from 12 yards.

But whether he is racing 100 yards to exchange knowing glances with Arsenal fans or dragging red shirts across the pitch like moths to a flame, Adebayor is no shrinking violet.

Liverpool could not cope with his mobility, his appetite for the ball, his eagerness to please a congregation who once reviled him.

And when Pepe Reina spilled Jermain Defoe’s speculative shot, the striker from Togo found his mojo to devour the rebound before supplying the final flourish in stoppage time with few visiting defenders, if any, in the same postcode.

So unanimous was the appreciation of Adebayor’s industry that he even high-fived linesman John Flynn - right in front 3,500 of disapproving missionaries from Merseyside - when he was readmitted to the playing area after receiving treatment.

The nine men left White Hart Lane with their grievances, but take nothing away from Tottenham.

If Adebayor arrived for his season on loan from Manchester City with heavy baggage from his Arsenal days, it contains gold bullion, not bricks.

If Carroll meets a more resolute colossus than King this season, he will be marked by King Kong.

And after a sublime performance conducting the orchestra, now we know why Luka Modric never moved to Chelsea in the transfer window: on this evidence, they could not afford him.

By Mike Walters