Last weekend was the 179th North London derby and the build up for me was as tense as ever. Who would start? Who would be dropped? How would we play? Benjamin Stambouli was quoted as saying Giroud is not his friend because he plays for Arsenal. Ben Davies said he knows how much the game means to the fans. Neither, as it turned out, even made the squad.

After a nondescript performance against West Bromwich Albion, would Mauricio Pochettino finally lose patience with new vice-captain Emmanuel Adebayor and give Roberto Soldado his first league start since Cardiff back in March? In the end, though, Pochettino kept faith with Adebayor – and, in my opinion, rightly so.

After a less than stellar performance, Adebayor came in for a lot of criticism, some of which was overly harsh. On a personal level I am less than enamoured with an ex-Arsenal player being in our ranks. However, we can’t rewrite the past; therefore, I will always judge his performances on their merits.

The zenith was the farcical penalty against Basel, which knocked us out of the Europa League

His three seasons with us have been very much a mixed bag. The first was a runaway success: with a midfield of Modric, Bale and van der Vaart behind him, he was easily our best striker since Dimitar Berbatov left in 2008. Adebayor has always had the talent, but there was always that missing element to put him on the same pedestal as Samuel Eto’o and Didier Drogba. What these two have (had) in spades is an incredible work-rate and, arguably more importantly, consistency. Adebayor’s 17 goals in 32 league appearances in his first season gave us the impression of greater times ahead, but that was where it started to go awry.

Harry Redknapp was relieved of his duties and replaced by Andre Villas Boas, with whom Adebayor had a tumultuous relationship. This was reflected in a far less impressive goal return over the next 18 months; the familiar cries of “he only plays well when there’s a contract on the the table” were increasing in volume. The zenith was the farcical penalty against Basel, which knocked us out of the Europa League.

The brilliance of Gareth Bale for the first season and subsequently the signing of Roberto Soldado made it easy to forget about Adebayor. However, Villas Boas’ tenure was to come to an end and Tim Sherwood was to immediately bring back Adebayor into the fray. His faith was rewarded with two goals in his first two games. Adebayor was the catalyst for many good Spurs performances for the remainder of the season, often taking games by the scruff of the neck and gaining us much needed points.

When he’s good, he’s good; when he’s bad, we may as well be playing with 10 men

Which brings us to the present day. He is now under his fourth manager at Spurs – this would be amazing at any other club than ours. His form thus far this season has pretty much mirrored the team’s. He is still trying to find his way, showing occasional flashes of brilliance. When he’s good, he’s good; when he’s bad, we may as well be playing with 10 men. That said, do we judge him at his worst or at his best?

Roberto Soldado has two goals in 20 Premier League games. Harry Kane is unproven and it would do absolutely nothing for his confidence to be thrown in at the deep end and not deliver – it was bad enough when he scored a freak own goal against Sunderland. As it stands, Adebayor is our best striker and it’s up to Pochettino and the rest of his team mates to try and get the best out of him. When we have got the best out of him, it makes us a much better side.

If you can’t handle him at his worst, then you don’t deserve him at his best.