City might as well get some sort of return on their layout for Tevez and putting him on the bench might be a good option
Apparently, having served his two-week club suspension, Carlos Tevez is eligible to play in Wednesday's Carling Cup match at Wolves. Although that sounds a bit like a bad joke, given that the row between Manchester City and their former poster boy has escalated to the extent of calling in the lawyers, if Tevez was as eager to play in Munich last month as his representatives now seem to be suggesting, maybe it is time for the club to call his bluff and get him back into action.
Undoubtedly Tevez would not like missing out on glamour bouts like last weekend's historic derby and being asked to turn out with the second string in minor competitions on wet midweek nights, but City are surely entitled to put his supposed commitment to the test. He might not be match-fit enough to start a game, but City could still put him on the bench and ask him to start warming up 10 minutes before the end, just to see how that goes. Or they could just put him on the bench and leave him there, and keep doing that for a while.
The only thing preventing City calling on Tevez again is Roberto Mancini's assertion, made on the spur of the moment in an emotional interview in Germany a month ago, that as far as he was concerned the player was finished at the club. It was Sky's Geoff Shreeves who actually framed the question about whether Tevez could ever play for Mancini again, to which the manager's response was that he wouldn't, though in the cold light of day that position might be worth reconsidering.
For one thing, if City are hoping for full market value for the player, should a buyer emerge in January or next summer, they are unlikely to get it if Tevez has spent the bulk of the season making noises offstage. In any normal transfer negotiation ? which this one most certainly will not be ? the size of the fee reflects not only the value of the player to the buying club, but the size of the loss to the selling club. If the selling club has already told the world that the player is finished and has no future with them, there is no incentive for the buying club to offer more than the bare minimum.
It is not really the way to do business, and while this is not to suggest that Mancini was in any way at fault for the way he conducted himself on the night of that fateful game at the Allianz Arena, the club accountants might have wished he had expressed his displeasure in a more open-ended way. Sorry if that sounds wishy-washy, but the reality of dealing with players who earn �250,000 a week and have high-powered advisers who can mobilise legal teams and place stories on the back pages of newspapers any time they need to, is that all the angles need to be considered at all times. It is not quite that football management has become an impossible job, more a case that certain players now operate outside the normal reaches of managerial control.
Not only do most people find it difficult to understand Tevez's dissatisfaction with Manchester City in the first place ? when they are clearly going places and have made him the best-paid player in the country ? they also struggle to grasp what is driving the whole dispute, and in which direction. Ninety per cent of all normal footballing foes would have kissed and made up the night Mancini made his gesture of conciliation and invited Tevez to a late night t�te-�-t�te, which may not have been quite as cosy as City sources made out, though it did at least appear to take place. Most of the other 10% would have used that ice-breaker to set up a working truce, however uneasy, that might last until the next transfer window, yet in the Tevez case nothing came of it and the pair are arguably further apart than they have ever been.
On the one hand it is tempting to hope that Tevez goes ahead with his plan to sue Mancini for defamation of character. Which side would be the first to call Sir Alex Ferguson as a character witness? The Tevez camp had better act quickly if they wish to sign up that influential and well-informed voice, because only last week the Manchester United manager was expressing his admiration for Mancini and the way he has handled himself in a difficult situation.
When the XFM radio station ran a text-in last week to find the best description of Tevez in just three words, the winning entry was: Complete wrong 'un. Given that strength of feeling in Manchester, and on both sides now, it is debatable how much good name Tevez has left to tarnish, though ultimately his low public esteem comes down to the events of 27 September in Munich, and ultimately that resolves itself into City's now slightly compromised argument that a refusal to warm-up is tantamount to a refusal to play, and just as much a matter of misconduct.
Everyone will have their own opinions on that, even if the television pictures are oddly incapable of proving one claim or the other. One thing that nothing appears likely to prove is that Tevez's actions in Munich were premeditated, and while City may have their suspicions, unless they have incontrovertible evidence they might be better concentrating on something that will stand up. If Mancini can just soften his initial stance over Tevez never playing again, the action can move back to the present rather than remaining rooted to a particular spat on an overheated night in Germany.
Though City may actually be the wronged party in this dispute, they can afford to be magnanimous. Not just literally, through the Abu Dhabi billions, but because they have just proved to the watching world that they are not in the least reliant on Tevez on the pitch, and that this protracted squabble is an unwanted distraction to what is turning out to be a much bigger football story. As long as Tevez remains in isolation, unseen, unhappy and unheard apart from through his adviser's press channels, he retains the ability to overshadow the club's success. Make him more visible, say by selecting him on the bench for a Carling Cup game, and he immediately becomes a smaller part of the story, something the fans would probably not be slow to point out.
City may not fancy another climbdown so soon after the last, but why let a player they believe to be insubordinate and in breach of contract have everything his own way? The club are still paying him �250,000 per week, and may be doing so for a long time in view of the fact that solid offers from leading European clubs have been conspicuous by their absence. They might as well get some sort of return on their money.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/oct/26/carlos-tevez-manchester-city-mancini-roberto
Nicholas Drazenovic Chris Drury Brandon Dubinsky Matt Duchene
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