If money could buy cohesion, if money could buy discipline, then Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini could have advised, actually, pleaded, with club owner Sheikh Mansour to break the bank and buy it at whatever cost.
If discipline was an injection or medicine, Mancini could have administered an overdose to a good number of one too many bad aples in his squad. Mario Balotelli would be the first in line, then Carlos Tevez while Edin Dzeko would also need some. Just in case.
For how can you possibly explain or even try to address a situation whereby a player, earning well over £200,000 a week (it will take me 87 years to accumulate that total if my current financial status doesn’t improve – thank God it will) refuses to play for the club that pays him that unfair amount!
Well, such a scenario can only happen in a money-rich club and Manchester City is one. The latest saga featuring wantaway striker Carlos Tevez who all accusations point to the fact that he refused to come in as a substitute in the Citizens’ 2-0 loss to Bayern Munich in their Champions League encounter.
The 27-year-old Argentine has since been suspended by the club for two weeks but the question that many are asking is whether the Italian tactician has lost control of his dressing room. Tevez wasn’t the only sign of indiscipline on City’s dugout at the Allianz arena. Edin Dzeko had his own show of petulance after being substituted for Nigel De Jong.
So while prima donna Mario Balotteli seems to have taken a break from the Eastlands player-power-cast and reports suggest that Tevez could be handed a worldwide ban, it’s also important to ‘google’ Mancini and really ask questions about his man-management.
What is a talent as good as Adam Johnson doing on the bench? If they don’t play him, why not sell him? And just what happened with Craig Bellamy? Is it really bloated player egos that is bringing discomfort at Man City or does Mancini have his own egotism to nurture and protect?
Tevez has been the club’s topscorer in the past two seasons and it’s his goals that helped the club lift its first major silverware since 1976. He clearly expressed his displeasure with life at Eastlands and the city of Manchester as a whole and a move to Corinthians was being worked on but fell through.
Tevez swore never to play for the club again but after coming back from a long holiday in South America, he performed a U-turn. But it seemed Mancini wanted to punish the former West Ham and Man United player who has played more games on the bench this season, making only two starts and two substitute appearances. Tevez was also stripped off the captaincy.
Tevez’s saga is well documented, and so is Mancini’s fellow Italian Mario Balotelli. The two have been on cross-roads ever since the striker joined the Abu Dhabi-funded club just over a year ago. During the preseason, the two had a scrap at each other after the talented striker attempted to score with a spinning backheel. He successfully missed.
Whether these chronicles of player indiscipline will cost Mancini his job (it once happened at AC Milan) is a matter of wait and see. For Carlito, this may just end up being the lowest chapter in his already topsy-turvy career in English football.
In the meanwhile, we can all sit back and watch how this modern Soap Opera with a cast as diverse as having two Alejandros (read Italians), an Argentine and, well, a Bosnian pans out.
And That's thesteifmastertake!!
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