The 27-year-old striker is on a season-long loan from City to Tottenham — and is highly unlikely to return to the club that paid £25million for him in 2009 — but he suggested that Roberto Mancini’s squad might not be as strong as everyone believes.

“Of course Tottenham are still in the race,” he said ahead of Tuesday’s visit to Norwich City. “Man City are top at the moment, but they have to play all the big clubs. We are only halfway through. Can they keep playing the way they are playing until the end of the season? We will have to wait and see.

“They have Kolo and Yaya Touré going to the African Cup of Nations, so we have to see how they cope. They have got a great team and great spirit and are playing great football. But if they get a couple of injuries as well, it could be difficult.”

Adebayor has been a key signing for Spurs manager Harry Redknapp and has transformed the team’s prospects since his arrival at the end of August, with City subsidising a large chunk of his £170,000-a-week wages. He scored in last week’s 1-1 draw against Chelsea, an encounter which confirmed Spurs’s top-four credentials and left them in third place — their highest position going into Christmas since 1984.

“This club is going forward and we are improving,” Adebayor said. “So we just have to keep our heads up, keep enjoying ourselves. We have got to play Norwich now and we have to do everything we can to win that game.

“You could never write off Chelsea. They have got good players, they are up there. Even when they were 1-0 down they still kept the ball, passing it around. You can tell that this team has got experience. Chelsea are ­capable of anything until the end of this season. From now on they could even go unbeaten, so they could be champions.”

Adebayor, despite his impressive performances, has been frustrated in some matches this season and believed he was not being treated fairly by officials having had an apparently legitimate headed goal chalked off against Chelsea.

“At the moment everything is going against me from the point of referees,” he said, although it could be argued that he was fortunate not to be sent off by referee Howard Webb after collecting an early booking. “But that is football. Sometimes you score, you are offside but the ref gives it. Against Chelsea I got two goals, but the ref says I am offside [for the second]. You have to keep laughing, enjoy yourself and be a human being. I can’t start jumping on the ref. He got it wrong, it’s part of football.”

Spurs now head for Carrow Road with Adebayor adamant they can cement their place among the top four – as long as they stave off injuries. With Aaron Lennon and, possibly, Jermain Defoe out the attacking options are limited while in defence Ledley King and Younes Kaboul have suffered hamstring injuries.

However, Rafael van der Vaart looks set to face Norwich after his hamstring injury proved less serious than first feared.

“He looks OK, he looks like he could be fit,” Redknapp said. “We thought he had a hamstring. He went for a scan and it didn’t show a tear.”