Emmanuel Adebayor believes his half-hour cameo in Crystal Palace’s defeat to Bournemouth on Tuesday should have silenced doubters.

Adebayor was stripped and ready to come on when Benik Afobe put the visitors ahead after Marc Pugh had levelled Scott Dann’s first-half goal.

Pardew brought his January signing on anyway and although he didn’t manage to score, Adebayor felt his showing proved his fitness.

“I think there is no one that can say I’ve been out for six or seven months, the way I played today in the last 30 minutes,” he said.

“Football is something I have loved doing since I started walking, fitness was never a question in my career.

“I haven’t played a full game since May but I can easily say I played more than all these guys playing in the Premier League because I was in Africa and it’s easy to organise a game.

“I just have to call on some of my friends and tell them, ‘listen I’m in the mood to play football this afternoon’ and that’s it, a proper game with proper professionals.”

The defeat made it five league losses in a row for Palace, and while the Eagles had much of the play in the second-half, they failed to create many clear-cut chances.

Adebayor could only ruffle the side-netting from his only chance to equalize on debut, albeit an awkward shot on the turn.

“That’s football, you miss some you score some,” he added. “I’ll just have to keep on working hard in training and hopefully the next one will be in.

“Everyone has their head down but you know they are all big guys and it’s not the first defeat in their career so they know how to handle it.

“Everyone is a little bit disappointed, hopefully we can put that into our character on Saturday to take the three points.”