Some good points, Ruin.
The impression I get from most of the lads here on the Spurs board is that we are quite impressed with how Mancini has handled what was always going to be his greatest challenge; controlling the rather large and very expensive pram he's now in charge of.
Take Balotelli for instance- complete fruitcake who's days at Citeh looked numbered after his ballet-like pirouette in that pre-sea friendly. Yet, despite publicly losing his temper with the lad, Mancini handled the situation and enormous ego very diplomatically, and we're already seeing the results of that quite early on in the season.
As for Tevez, you're right that the fog surrounding this whole affair is ludicrous, but im afraid Tevez has been playing with matches for far too long. Honestly, any player on £250,000 a week playing in the best league in the world, captain of a top team in that top league, has NO right to anounce every fortnight that he hates his home, his team, his manager, his club's board of directors, the weather, the blah blah blah. He threw his toys out once too often, and now the club are trying to sell them to Oxfam.
What Tezev doesn't seem to realise is that this 'defamation' incident is utterly IRRELEVANT visa-vis the future of his career, b/c no-one can afford his wages and transfer fee anyway.