With a disgruntled Samir Nasri threatening to push forward a move from the Emirates, reportedly to fierce rivals Manchester United, Carlos Tevez vowing never to return to Manchester, an ongoing battle to keep Cesc Fabregas at Arsenal and Wayne Rooney’s mid season tantrum, are the modern day stars of our beloved game losing respect for the sport itself or just exercising common sense?
“There’s nothing to do in Manchester. There are two restaurants. Everything’s small. It rains all the time. You can’t go anywhere. There comes a moment when you say, where am I gonna go with my family? And you begin to feel bad….I will not return to Manchester. Not for vacation, not anything.” Quote Carlos Tevez on an Argentinean chat show last week.
Tevez has had something of a strange career thus far. Being owned by an investment group and not solely a club surely raises difficulties when making a switch, but that hasn’t prevented the Argentinean from moving clubs, nevertheless controversially. He joined West Ham United in 2006 after stating that he refused to play for his then current club Corinthians and wanted a move to England.
Impressing in his first year, he switched to Manchester United in a deal reported to be worth £20 million, only £2 million of which West Ham received, the rest going to the sports investment group that owns his signature and rights. A year later and United offered his buy out of £25.5 million in order to secure Tevez on a permanent deal only for the Argentine to refuse the offer, signing for bitter rivals Manchester City for a fee claimed to be around £47 million. Now the 2010/11 season has come to a close and the current City captain has stated that he will never return to Manchester.
Where Tevez will end up next is something of a mystery. Will he return to Argentina or Brazil, or is a big money move to Spain on the cards? But more pertinent a question is whether the top class forward is as greedy as he seems or simply a great product, being used over and over again by a company to generate profit. Surely if he really wasn’t too fond of the English weather, food or attractions for his family to enjoy he wouldn’t have stayed here this long.
More debate surrounds Arsenal. Samir Nasri has seemingly stalled contract negotiations over a reported extra £20,000 per week. The club have offered him a new deal worth only £90,000 per week. This is a huge amount of money, and as we all know many great footballers receive hefty weekly sums to play at the top level, but is Nasri actually stalling for the increase in wages or perhaps instead having second thoughts about Arsenal’s future trophy prospects.
What a load of tripe and typical lazy journalism to cut up what Tevez said to make a provocative sound-bite. With regards never returning to Manchester, what he actually said was “”When I finish my contract I will not return to Manchester ever – not even on holiday.”
HeavyRiffs, Does it really matter exactly what he said? I’ve seen the video and he made it clear he doesnt like manchester and doesnt ever want to return
If you watch the interview, those were his exact words. I will be very surprised if Tevez is playing in Manchester next season.
You cant argue that manchester city’s players are greedy and money driven. Why else would they play for man city but for high wages? The man city fans will be in denial about this but the truth hurts. Your club has no prestige, just cash which you will find will only get you so far. You can have all the money in the world but if you havent got a storied history and your fanbase is small then youll never be a big club.
go for local AW.these disloyal outsiders dont come here for football but will play for anyone who pays top dollar.how many local players go abroad for more?thses otsiders will bite the hand that feed them.let Nasri go,Arsenal has been there before him-it will be there after him.let him go for more money somewhere.get a player better than him.i hate these greedy Mcnrs.
Course it matters what he said, couldn’t care less if he doesn’t like the town he currently plys his trade in, I’m not about to holiday in Fort Apache either. If he sees out his contract so be it, if he goes we cash in or don’t sell, win/win.
As for your naive comments Cassius, football wasn’t invented in 1992 and City have a rich history, to state otherwise is idiotic and clearly shows a lack of knowledge and research. We now have CL football after finishing joint second and a trophy in the cabinet, plenty to attract big players. If our fanbase is so small, why did our trophy parade put the rags to shame?
Tevez didnt walk on united to join city just 4 money, united simply coulnt find the cash! remember fergie saying” hes to expensive” tosh
HeavyRiffs, there’s little point putting nuggets like cassius back in their box. chances are this person knows nothing about manchester ( or trafford) and will not have a scooby what a rag is. Already exposed the fact that they think sky invented the ‘EPL’ and before that there was only american netball.
Shut up you Man c idiots.you haven’t won anything for 30yrs and then coz you win FA now yu thnk you are a big club.a club must build not buy a team.wat you have are mercenaries ready to play ,get paid and leave.wake up!
Superman – Hope you’re a rag fan, every player came through the ranks at Nited, they never paid £20-30M for anyone did they. Back in your box son, we’ve always been a big club, we’re just getting bigger and bigger is all…
It’s not that United have never bought a 20-$30M pound players. It’s that United understand the business model that you can’t have a team of superstars, paying each of them in excess of 110 thousand pounds a week. If you look at the problem City is having now offloading players becuase no other club wants to pay those outlandish prices, you will see the problem at hand….United pays 1 or 2 individuals that high salary, but not 9 or 10 like City do. This is why United are staying with youth….long-term it will pay dividends.
man city now compare themselves with man united! Because of one FA cup. Awesome. I wonder what will happen when they win a champions league or even the premier league. In nigeria, we love football, following clubs like real, barca, inter, milan, bayern, tottenham, arsenal, chelsea, man utd, bolton, liverpool, everton, but no man city fan i know.
Ugoh, no-one compared City to Nited, just disputed the myth that they never spent money when “building” a team. Love the fact that nigerians support bolton over city, nobody loves us, but we don’t care…
mancity is a small club build wid money not faith
Abdi – Are you confusing football clubs with churches?
Man city can never be a big club whilst they cant even fill their ground. They have a tiny fanbase and no history, and i mean way before 1992. They have no prestige at all. The only thing that makes them compete with clubs like liverpool and man u is money. Man u won over a lot of fans in the 60’s and again n the 90’s because of their exciting free flowing attacking football and their mix of star players with exciting youth. Man city just have a load of big players with no youth who play horrible boring football. This is why they cant win over fans abroad. When people say manchester all over the world, nobody even knows there is a team in blue who play their. It doesnt help either that man city fans compare everything they do to man u. ‘oh but man u did this, or man u did that too’ We are left thinking, do they want their club to just copy man u and be like them, because it sounds like it.
Franco, yet another deluded, irrational, dare i say “global” rag.
We can’t fill the grund apparently, yet the 4th best supported team in the Prem league, 3rd prior to Neqwcastle’s promotion. The only teams with more fans at games are the three with the biggest grounds, Barcodes, Nited and Arse. Nited won over lot’s of fans after the Munich disaster (58), which was indeed a tragedy, but garnered them Global support. City have no youth, folly, we have a very young team and have had one of the best youth academys for donkeys years now. You’re obviously a johnny come lately rag that jumped on the trophy bandwagon. As if you bothered to read into the history of both clubs, you’ll see that City were originally the dominant force in Manchester and also bailed out Nited several times allowing them to play games at our ground and other measures. To put it simply, you are one of the reasons that so many Nited fans are despised, because of your blatant arrogance that if anyone tries to win anything, they’re copying Nited.
The only thing we want to copy from Nited and compare to Nited, is a desire to win trophies, you focus on “your” club, we’ll focus on ours.
Man City will never get the respect they want. They have bought a team, and now they’re ontop of the world….The problem with this, is while they continue to buy big, United are going younger, bringing in young players for the future. The truth is you can only buy big for so long, then reality sets in. If their sugar daddy goes away, then those expensive players with expensive salaries will head for the exit door with a quickness.
Great website! The kids (and I) had a great time hanging around 2 weeks ago! How is Ginny? Has she given birth?