Carlos Tevez’s future at Man City and his prospects as a Fantasy heavyweight have been cast in serious doubt by an incredible series of off-field events over the last 24 hours.
Tevez, who has notched 10 goals and 4 assists this season, has rocked Manchester City by slapping in a transfer request – a story which broke late on Saturday evening. This was then followed by a confirmation and rejection of the request in a bold statement from City, in which they revealed Tevez as the “highest paid player at the Manchester City Football Club” and appeared to cast blame on the players’ agent, Kia Joorabchian, insinuating that the move could be fuelled by the desire to agree a new, improved contract.
This claim was quickly refuted by Tevez himself, who issued a counter statement on Sunday evening which stated that his relationship with “certain individuals” was “beyond repair”.
Added to this, there are also reports suggesting that City had previously attempted to convince Tevez into remaining at the club by offering him a £5 million one-off payment – outside of his contract. According to the reports, Tevez turned this down, stating that money was not the issue; the club has failed to reject these claims.
It’s an extraordinary chain of events and a very public argument, which appears to make Tevez’s situation at the club untenable, placing his prospects as Fantasy option in severe doubt…
The striker is owned by over 25% of Fantasy Premier League managers who must now be pondering their next move with a striker who has amassed 94 points and holds a current value of 11.1 having started the season with a price tag of 10.5. That value dropped for Gameweek 17 in the light of his suspension that saw him miss the trip to Upton Park this weekend. There’s now the real prospect that it will go on declining, unless Fantasy Managers gain some assurance that Tevez will still be a factor on the pitch for City.
There’s clearly huge doubt surrounding that. While City’s statement stressed that “The door remains open for Carlos to be selected to play”, Roberto Mancini will be faced with selecting a player who, despite his unquestionable value to the side, is certainly troubled, unhappy and possibly demotivated following Sunday’s developments.
The City statement, and the retaliatory response from the player , has opened up wounds that could require significant time to heal before Mancini can begin to make plans for involving Tevez. In addition, despite stressing that Tevez has no ill-feeling towards his manager yesterday, there have been several incidents in the past few weeks to suggest otherwise. Most recently Tevez’s reacted badly to his substitution in the 1-0 win over Bolton.
Tevez was given “special dispensation by the Manager to take leave overseas” but has not travelled back to Argentina. The reports suggest that his representatives have stated that the player had been given insufficient time to go home and return in time for training.
Tevez has previously stated that his absence from his two daughters and his wife back in Argentina is a major problem. The player has even hinted that he may consider retiring from football in order to be re-united with his family. It is widely suspected that he will look to seal a move to Spain in January, in the hope that his Spanish speaking wife will join him.
For now however, City are insistent that Tevez is going nowhere. He is due back in England in the next 24-hours and further developments will surely follow.
Fantasy Managers can only sit and wait and hope that the air can be cleared sufficiently to get him on the pitch for the weekend clash with Everton. Right now that looks a rather unlikely prospect, but press conferences this week, prior to City’s Europa League tie on Thursday, will surely give us more to go on.
Tevez has been removed from our Watchlist player rankings pending tomorrow’s full refresh.
