A third place finish in the Premier League and an FA Cup triumph over Stoke City is indicative of Manchester City’s progress under Roberto Mancini but regardless of how many more millions the Italian spends this summer, no acquisition will be as integral to their future ambitions as Carlos Tevez.
The Argentine finished joint-top Premier League scorer for the season, and was the top scoring forward in Fantasy Premier League (FPL), outperforming pricier options such as Didier Drogba and Wayne Rooney with a total of 185 points. Tevez was also top forward when it came to impressing the Bonus judges, too, picking up 32, the fourth best haul of the campaign.
The Statistics
Tevez started at a price of 10.5 but a run of seven goals in his first eight games saw his value rise quickly, hitting 11.0 by gameweek 9. He proved to be one of the most reliable captaincy choices for Fantasy Managers last term, hitting double figures in as many as eight gameweeks (four at home, four away) as he ended the season with an FPL total of 21 goals and 6 assists. There was less balance to his goals, though, with 13 coming at Eastlands and 8 on the road, as Tevez grabbed a third of his side’s 60 league goals.
A reliable Fantasy pick, Tevez is one of the few City players who is pretty much guaranteed a start when fit and available. He missed just seven games of City’s league season and a hamstring injury towards the end of the season certainly played a part in a fairly quiet last few gameweeks, as Tevez ended with just 2 goals in his last 8 appearances. His best week came at the start of February, as gameweek twenty-six produced a hat-trick in the 3-0 home win over West Brom; the 3 Bonus Points subsequently followed for a 17 point FPL haul, though it’s a mark of his consistency that Tevez also picked up 16 points on two occasions.
The Prospects
When it comes to Tevez’s future, the end of last season turned into something of a pantomime when the player admitted he wants out of City, only to be contradicted by Roberto Mancini, who went to great lengths in stressing Tevez would be going nowhere. The story looks set to keep running but if he can keep his talisman at Eastlands, Mancini’s plans for next season will be intriguing; Champions League qualification means there will be plenty of games on the agenda and City players will be prone to rotation more than most clubs. If Mancini chooses to prioritise the league above any other competition, the same 4-2-3-1 formation with Tevez in the front man role seems likely.
The City boss also needs to find a way to integrate Edin Dzeko into the XI and while other big-money forwards such as Mario Balotelli can operate out wide, the Bosnian is best from a central position. Prospective owners of Tevez will be hoping that Dzeko’s slow progress in the Premier League may convince Mancini to field him in Europe and domestic cups, thus keeping the Argentine fresh for league action.
A price hike looks inevitable for next season, with Tevez’s 2010/11 returns likely to see him ranked at the top end of the scale for forwards; 12.0 wouldn’t be a surprise. With his penalty and free-kicks duties added to a tendency to pick up Bonus, Tevez will continue to offer huge potential returns, though, and seems to always produce value for money, regardless of how much Fantasy Budget his acquisition requires.
