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
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.
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.
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.
