As Carlos Tevez stepped onto the plane to fly home to Argentina, he sent packing any hopes of playing for Manchester City again.
Following Tevez’s unplanned trip home after being refused permission by Mancini, the chief executive of PFA Gordon Taylor has said that he is ‘very disappointed’ in the Argentinian striker.
The 27-year-old’s flee from the country meant that he missed scheduled training with the Mancini’s men.
Taylor, who represented Tevez during his alleged misconduct surrounding the Bayern Munich Champions League game, said he ‘was in danger of burning bridges’ following his recent antics.
Tevez is a massive disappointment
But the reality, Taylor’s disappointment in Tevez was a smoke screen for the PFA Chief Executive’s red face. Only weeks before, Taylor had managed to persuade those football governing bodies to half Manchester City’s initial fine – only for the argentine to throw it back in his face.
Mancini will now undoubtedly push for further punishment against his former captain, whose diva like behaviour this year has occupied the paper headlines season long.
On Tuesday, the argentine looked to have come round, having confirmed that he would not be appealing the fine. With everything looking like a lesson had been learnt, Mancini expected to see Tevez at training on Wednesday. But it was not to be.
The problem that City face is following the actions of Tevez, his value is diminishing by the second and he will be hard to offload to any club, let alone the ones that will stretch to cover his wage.
But Tevez’s self-destruct mode is induced by one man only, the consequences of which will hurt him the most. And now with a complex legal situation on the horizon, things are only about to turn worse for Tevez.
Taylor added; ‘Sometimes sorry is the toughest word but it does put an end to difficult situations and stand-offs’. However, it looks like things have long past ‘a sorry’ rectifying the situation.
It might now be the case that they look to pick holes in the Argentine’s club contract to push for termination and even try an sue Tevez for a breech in his terms.
For now though, City will need to firm up a strategy around what to do next. The situation was that Carlos needed to get back to fitness and that hasn’t happened. We’ll see more on this when, and indeed if, he returns back to England.
Across the shores in Florida state, Golf’s world number one Luke Donald may have won the end of season Disney flagship tournament, but it looks like Carlos Tevez is taking the mickey up in Manchester.
The Manchester City forward has said that he is considering taking legal action against his club manager Roberto Mancini for the defamation of his character according to a host of media sources this morning.
It was on Tuesday where the Manchester City forward was fined 4 weeks wages, equating to £1m, for what the club say was five separate breaches to his player contract during the game against Bayern Munich.
Though it is not clear what all of the five reasons are, all players’ contracts hold the generic citation that a player is obliged to ‘participate in any matches where the player is selected.’ The club’s investigation proceedings conducted after the Champions League game found Tevez guilty of refusing to play in the European tie against the German outfit.
Tevez however still pleads his innocence and his advisers believe that none of the five reasons City gave for their fine for were breached. The Argentine goal scorer has two weeks to appeal the decision. If the appeal fails, he can then take it to a Premier League tribunal.
Tevez’s record
Tevez hasn’t played since City’s Carling Cup tie against Birmingham back in September and following the Argentine’s recent antics, it looks like it might be his final involvement in a blue shirt. Following their run of results, Manchester City have to stand by Mancini and, as a result, let Tevez go come January.
It seems such a long time ago now that Tevez captained Manchester City to FA Cup victory, taking the blues to their first major trophy in 35 years. Since Mark Hughes signed the 27-year-old, he has scored 53 goals in 91 appearances. Even with Manchester City’s prolific squad – losing that fire power will hurt.
But his shenanigans off the field have ironically kept him off the field and so he has only made 5 appearances, two of which were starts, and is yet to find the back of the net this season.
The likelihood of him playing for another European giant is slim and with Brazilian side Corinthans even pulling out of their £40m bid, there is little left potential for the argentine. A prospering club career needlessly thrown out the window, soon to be followed by a flourishing international career.
Never before have the words ‘what a waste’ ever been more relevant.
The Manchester United fortress that had been built upon 19 league titles, 11 FA Cups and 3 European titles came crashing down around the feet of Alex Ferguson, as City thumped the Manchester rivals 6 – 1 at Old Trafford.
With City fans still coming down from the sugary blue sherbet buzz of a 6-1 victory over Manchester United, their euphoric come down will not be the only thing to take a tumble this week. The hopes and dreams of the Manchester United faithful will have taken a bruising, not at least to losing so definitively to their derby counterparts, but more because it puts a major dent into these early Manchester United Premier League ambitions.
Manchester City take the reins
The loss that ended United’s 19 game home winning streak seems to have really hit Ferguson hard, as his post-match interview revealed a lot of felt pain for the scot. In the interview with BBC, Ferguson said: ‘it was a horrible defeat’.
The pivotal point in the game came when Jonny Evans brought down an industrious Balotelli, though City were already in control at this point and continued to run riot on 10 men United.
While it was Mario Balotelli’s first goal that set a platform for the win, David Silva was the real fire behind City’s win in which Jonny Evans only added fuel to. And even though many Manchester United fans will have seen some hope in a Darren Fletcher consolation goal, the brutal reality was that even the Scottish international would be unable to derail the Manchester City freight train.
In the end, two goals from Balotelli and Dzeko, as well as contributions from Aguero and Silva was more than enough to sink the Manchester United destroyer.
The defeat marks Manchester United’s worst home defeat since 1955, as Mancini’s men scored 5 goals in the second 45 minutes to embarrass Fergie’s men who in the past have seen so much success.
There will be many fans that rightly pin point the sending off of Evans as the pivotal moment in the game, but in actual fact the warning signs had been coming long before his dismissal. Manchester United have by their standards limped through home games against Chelsea, Basle and Liverpool. Many of the red’s fans will contend the slump, but their results leading up the derby spoke volumes.
And with the fickle threads that are interwoven in the fabric of football as ever present in these modern times, Manchester City’s tag as being ‘noisy neighbours’ was well and truly put to bed, with questions surrounding their footballing dominance over the city now taking its place.
But the blue half of Manchester should not get carried away. As emphatic as this win was, let’s not forget Manchester United are Manchester United and seamlessly have the bounce-back-ability like no other team.
Ferguson will now need to lean on his experience to get his United team back to winning ways and put aside the shock that will be instilled at Old Trafford. If this is the case, it might be Everton who prove to be the unforeseen casualties in the United backlash.
Yet the questions surrounding a Manchester power slide still pose, which were raised quicker than the three stoppage time goals City scored. Whether this will be one of the most significant results in recent Premier League history remains to be seen, but regardless of what the future holds, this fixture will remain in the record books for a long time – at least, that will be the hope of Manchester United fans.
What was more evident was where Mancini had a rich squad of quality to flex, Ferguson struggled to come up with a solution when he looked to his bench with only Hernandez posing a real threat. Mancini though could bring on Dzeko and Nasri, both of whom possess real quality and are able to inject game changing performances. It goes without saying, the presence of Scholes was missed as United lacked his creativity, forcing Rooney to come far too deep to impose his goal scoring threat.
Nevertheless, life outside the derby continues and both sides will need to hurdle over the ramifications of City’s victory, as they find themselves in unchartered territory and their reactions from this game will be telling in the eventualities of the season.
Though two Manchester clubs clash this weekend in what is to be the tie of the season, there is at least one thing both sets of Manchester fans can share.
Following the ridiculous antics Carlos Tevez has subjected City fans to, Manchester’s rival fans have come together to vent their frustrations caused over the striker’s actions. Manchester has become awash with ‘Trash your Tevez Shirt’ waggons, which so far, have been well received by both sets of fans.
The unwanted shirts are to be shown to the Argentinian international and then suitably dispatched the local charities.
The images not only display the overtly enraged feelings of disgruntled Manchester City fans to a player who is still employed by their beloved team, but rarer, their tandem hatred for Tevez that is shared with the red side of Manchester.
Even Manchester City fans, who have had their fair share of the rough with the smooth, have reached their breaking point with the Argentinian.
So, it would be fair that without the backing of the fans, Carlos Tevez’s days in the colours of blue and white are over, right?
Well, it might not be quite as simple as that.
In this modern age of football, players have a regular habit of dirtying their images, only to wash it again with a goal in a crucial game or a season long performance that ultimately earns a club Champions League football perhaps..?
And for Carlos Tevez, the stage is set with a Manchester derby. Primed ready for a match winning performance that we know the Manchester City forward to be capable of against their local rivals would be like vaccinating the blue side on Manchester with amnesia serum. So, I suppose the real question that poses is; does Mancini share that same faith?
The Italian manger needs to remember what business he is in, which of course is winning games. Regardless of his personal feelings and injustices, a Carlos Tevez match winning goal is enough to cement his standing of City’s most success manager.
And it is in these pressured situations that risky decisions are made, often providing not only a source of entertainment and talking point, but the definitive moment in a tie of this nature. It is for that reason, Tevez reaches the summits of my football betting strategy this weekend, as I can see a pivotal moment in the forward’s career. Whether that be a demise or a rise to blue moon stardom remains to be seen. But with odds available like they currently are, the sky might just be the limit.
Posted in Football News | Tagged arg
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