Emmanuel Adebayor will keep working hard to earn a permanent Real Madrid deal after his "best game" so far for the Spaniards against Tottenham.
Adebayor netted eight times in nine north London derbies against Spurs while an Arsenal player and he returned to haunt his old rivals with the first two goals in Madrid's 4-0 Champions League quarter-final first-leg triumph at the Bernabeu.
Those strikes took Adebayor's tally to five goals in 14 appearances for Madrid since joining the club on a six-month loan from Manchester City in January, and they were a timely reminder of his talents with competition for places up front hotting up.
When Adebayor was brought in, Madrid's only fit recognised striker was the out-of-form Karim Benzema, but since his arrival Benzema has exploded into life with 12 goals in 12 games prior to suffering a hamstring injury while on international duty recently.
Benzema is expected to be back soon, though, and with Gonzalo Higuain - Madrid's leading league scorer in the last two seasons - also available again after making a rapid recovery from back surgery, Adebayor knows he needs to produce performances like Tuesday night's if he is to persuade Madrid to keep him on.
When asked if he wanted to stay at Madrid, Adebayor said following the Spurs game: "Of course I do.
"I don't know at the moment [about my future]. I just keep going working hard in training. I still have one or two months left so we will see."
Regarding his all-action display, the 27-year-old said: "It was my best game for Real Madrid.
"When you join a new club the most important thing is to score. It's always special to score in the Champions League. I have to keep working hard now, keep going and keep working in training to progress.
"I'm very happy. Now we have the second leg to finish the job. It puts us in a good position going to London."
Adebayor's performance has given Jose Mourinho a selection headache for the remainder of the season.
However, the Real coach is not complaining, saying: "The important thing is that we had three strikers, I've wanted this from the very first day. We've proved that with two strikers it's very difficult and with three we are covered.
"With the injury that Benzema has, we still have one striker playing and one on the bench, and that's how it should be. And at the moment I'm happy with all three of them, who are all completely different types of players with different qualities for the team."
Madrid's success in their first appearance in the Champions League quarter-finals since 2004 has seen them take a giant step towards the last four.
However, the Madrid players are not getting ahead of themselves with a job still to be done in the second leg at White Hart Lane.
Cristiano Ronaldo, who scored his side's final goal, said on Spanish television: "I'm very happy because the team played well and a 4-0 win in the quarter-finals of this competition against a team like Tottenham is very good.
"Even still we need to continue working and make the most of this advantage because in football anything can happen."
Goalkeeper Iker Casillas added: "In football there is a law which says you need to respect your opponents. In the return match many things can happen, so we need to be careful.
"We can't be over-confident and we need to try and score, because that would make it even more difficult for them to bounce back."
