Martin Samuel: Tevez Lacks Firepower

[masterwig]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/ar...0m-Manchester-Citys-gloom-lack-firepower.html

Sir Alex Ferguson was right. Carlos Tevez is not worth £30m and Manchester City's gloom is purely down to lack of firepower

Well, fancy that. It turns out Sir Alex Ferguson does know a bit about football after all.

It was Ferguson who initially reckoned Carlos Tevez was not a goal-scorer worth upwards of £30million; Ferguson whose selections indicated he thought a club with ambition to win the title needed a striker of greater potency; Ferguson who frequently preferred Tevez as a substitute; Ferguson who suffered plenty of lip from Manchester United supporters mistaking Tevez’s perspiration for inspiration.

Not a bad judge, though, was he? Not now potentially the most expensive signing in British transfer history — with a fee ranging from £32m to £47m, depending whose figures you believe — has reached the month of December having scored for Manchester City against a single Premier League team.
Carlos Tevez

Lack of firepower: £30m Carlos Tevez - or £47m, depending on whose figures you believe - has failed to score in the league since his double over West Ham

That was West Ham United, on September 28, 2009. Tevez scored twice in a 3-1 victory: the last league game City won. Beyond it, Tevez has scored against Crystal Palace and Scunthorpe United in the Carling Cup. It is doubtful this is the competition Sheik Mansour had in mind when he sanctioned such a fee on one player, not to
mention wages in the region of £145,000 per week.

Ferguson was spot on about Tevez. He is an impact player, at his best when the game is stretched and players tired, when his limitless vigour can cause havoc, as it did at Liverpool last weekend.

Tevez came on for Gareth Barry after 61 minutes and initially turned the game in City’s favour. He has great worth used in this way, no doubt about it.

The great match-winners, however, are more discerning in their conservation of energy. ‘You know what I am? I’m like a dog chasing cars,’ says The Joker, as played by Heath Ledger in the film The Dark Knight. ‘I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it.’

That is how Tevez goes at a game: with an abandon that earns instant admirers for its selflessness, but is not always the most effective way to win. Perhaps this is why, to complete the car-chasing analogy, when Tevez does get a chance, everything is often happening so quickly, he does not take it.

The game against Hull City was typical, in that Tevez linked the play well and helped create chances, but did not take his own.

This profligacy — and Tevez is not alone — is now having a serious impact on Manchester City’s season. Failing to win a league game in two months cannot be airily dismissed, even if all matches in that time have been drawn.

City have taken seven points from the last 21. The purchase of a £32m striker — indeed of a strike force costing substantially more than £100m by the time Robinho, Emmanuel Adebayor, Craig Bellamy and Roque Santa Cruz are included — is supposed to insure against such streaks.

Five alive: Adebayor and Bellamy have eached scored five - both more than Tevez

City believed they were buying efficiency, forwards capable of deciding matches against inferior opposition, the way Fernando Torres does for Liverpool or Didier Drogba for Chelsea.

This recent run has largely pitted City against mediocrity, but Tevez is the greatest disappointment. He has failed to score in 90 minutes against Fulham, Birmingham City and Hull, 83 minutes against Wigan Athletic and 73 minutes against Burnley.

To complicate matters, the need to keep him happy will weigh heavily on his manager, Mark Hughes. He left him out at Anfield, but this was the sort of treatment Tevez received at United, and those two years ended in rancour. So Tevez started next time, with Bellamy relegated to the bench. The irony is that Hughes appeared to have located the perfect use for Tevez against Liverpool, but risks confrontation if he perseveres with it.

Maybe he risks more this way. Manchester City’s present malaise is more complex than a barren run for one forward — Adebayor and Bellamy have only scored five league goals each, and the defence seem unable to maintain a lead — but the fact remains that no team of serious intent can thrive with a main striker who scores twice before December.
Carlos Tevez

Bench mark: Sir Alex Ferguson was right to use Tevez mainly as an impact sub

Tevez made his greatest impact at West Ham in 2007 because the goals required to make a difference to a team fighting relegation do not compare in number to those needed at the other end of the table.

During the infamous campaign after which Lord Griffiths surmised Tevez single-handedly saved West Ham, he scored just seven goals. As they arrived in a glut, and late, these proved vital, but in number it was a very ordinary return considering his status as a world-class forward with Argentina.

Tevez wasn’t even West Ham’s top goalscorer — Bobby Zamora got 11 — although there were two Premier League clubs where he would have been: Watford and Manchester City.

Joey Barton’s six qualified him as something of a hot-shot that season. Spend 125 million quid on strikers, however, and you are entitled to think the famine is over.

 

[Dodge]

Well spotted that man..

 

[Mayor West]

thats an old article isnt it? i read it before but gave up reading after the first line, simply getting the amount we paid wrong by a good £5m is poor work. He isnormally quite good though.

 

[colinbellsboots]

thats an old article isnt it? i read it before but gave up reading after the first line, simply getting the amount we paid wrong by a good £5m is poor work. He isnormally quite good though.

yeah its not like firgie ever gets the facts wrong, its evedently a rag trait. they say they have money but we all know there skint i say FUCKEM ALL

 

[Don Howe]

From his article yesterday. Keep up the good work Martin.

Still on the subject of prescience, several Manchester City fans have asked whether I care to revise my opinion that Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United manager, got it spot on when selling Carlos Tevez, because he does not score enough Premier League goals to justify his massive transfer fee. Yes and no.
Yes, because his Player of the Month award for December, after scoring seven times in six matches, was thoroughly deserved.
No, because had he made even half that impact in September, October or November — a period when he scored against just one Premier League club — the manager who put such great faith in him, Mark Hughes, would not have got the sack.
The jury remains out. Sorry.

 

[johnny on the spot]

Still on the subject of prescience, several Manchester City fans have asked whether I care to revise my opinion that Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United manager, got it spot on when selling Carlos Tevez, because he does not score enough Premier League goals to justify his massive transfer fee. Yes and no.
Yes, because his Player of the Month award for December, after scoring seven times in six matches, was thoroughly deserved.
No, because had he made even half that impact in September, October or November — a period when he scored against just one Premier League club — the manager who put such great faith in him, Mark Hughes, would not have got the sack.
The jury remains out. Sorry.

Fat fucker

 

[gary walker]

look's like someone's got egg on there face as well as 20 cheese burgers 6 portions of chips curry sauce and a litre of diet coke the fat c##t

 

[gary walker]

i forgot to add old piss pots bollocks on his chin

 

[SI's Bald Head]

From his article yesterday. Keep up the good work Martin.

Still on the subject of prescience, several Manchester City fans have asked whether I care to revise my opinion that Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United manager, got it spot on when selling Carlos Tevez, because he does not score enough Premier League goals to justify his massive transfer fee. Yes and no.
Yes, because his Player of the Month award for December, after scoring seven times in six matches, was thoroughly deserved.
No, because had he made even half that impact in September, October or November — a period when he scored against just one Premier League club — the manager who put such great faith in him, Mark Hughes, would not have got the sack.
The jury remains out. Sorry.

Martin - you mean when he was only 60% fit you knob head?

 

[gerrys_taxi]

what a fat hairy wanker. tevez didn't have a proper pre-season due to injury so he was behind on his fitness until mid november anyway. so as he hit top fitness top form followed. plus he can only get better.

fuck the press we'll just get on with our own things