Adebayor advice to Arsenal

The Gunners' slick passing game was the talk of England during the first half of last season, as a young, exciting squad driven by Cesc Fabregas defied expectations and set the pace in the title race.

It all went south during the latter part of the campaign, however, as the words 'young' and 'exciting' were replaced by 'inexperienced' and the Londoners' attractive style drew criticism rather than praise.

For many believed Arsene Wenger's men were more concerned with playing pretty football than earning results, as they finished the term trophyless after leading the Premier League in February.

And Adebayor admitted that he and his team-mates need to add the gritty, win-at-all-costs element to their repertoire if they are to compete with Manchester United and Chelsea."A lot of people talk about us and say we play good football. Good football is good, but we didn't win anything and you play to win," he said in The Independent.

"What we are going to keep in our heads is that playing football is good but sometimes you have to be tough on the pitch to win a game. We have learnt a lot of things. Sometimes you have to be dirty to win some games. You need to do that because it is part of football."Adebayor opened his goal tally earlier this week when he netted in Arsenal's 2-0 victory over FC Twente in their Champions League qualifier.

It was a scrappy win, to say the least, but the Togolese striker insisted that is exactly the way his side must learn to play."Against Twente we didn't play good football and certainly didn't play our best but we won 2-0 and that's what it's all about," he added.

"We kept going and kept passing it. Sometimes you have to forget about trying to play beautiful football and just make sure you win the game. That is the important thing, although we have to remember the passing and movement that we want to do."

Nevertheless, the Gunners will be hoping for a significantly more eye-catching performance in their Premier League opener against West Bromwich Albion this weekend.