I hear your points, HBIC. All I'm saying is that- like the way it's unfolded or not- Tevez hasn't exactly been blameless either: Like I said earlier, NO individual human being on £250,000 a week should be entitled to rock the boat every few weeks by very publicly declaring his hatred for his employers and immediate desire to abandon ship ASAP. We ALL get it Carlos- the weather in Manchester bothers you and the city's size is inadequate- we ALL hate Manchester and especially Moss Side, but there's no need to make sure every last tribe in the Amazon knows how disgruntled you are! Compare his behaviour to Luka's, who quietly went into Levy's office and, with minimal fuss, handed in a transfer request. It was only AFTER that request was (perhaps a little TOO) flatly denied that Luka went public and things started kicking off a bit. And he's being payed 1/4 of what Tevez receives and IMHO is just as good a player. Therefore, I'm glad that the ugly brute is finally being put in his place. Blameless or not, the Tevez saga will hopefully send out a message that NO player is bigger than the club. Ever. Anyways, we've reached 100 replies to a thoroughly engaging thread that has been 'in the charts' for over 5 days now, so Im well chuffed!
Well said, The Life & Times of Helder Postiga. Yes, Mancini has handled it very well and the results are proof of that. Football Focus' interview with Adebayor was telling. I get the feeling he (Manu) has been a bit of a nightmare but has matured/changed after the abyss that must have faced him in the shooting incident. For him to say that every day going to train with City was a chore showed the bad feeling in the camp. The fact that Mancini has quite clearly created a team that gels on the field proves you right in as much as his diplomatic skills must be quite sublime. All that said, I'd like to watch two teams made up of clones of Stuart Pearce. It might not be pretty, but it will be hard and fair. That said, stack me, Silva and Aguero are good players.
John Terry and Wayne Rooney have proved otherwise in the past couple of years. The best handling of a problem player recently has been Newcastle's handling of Joey Barton - they didn't resort to false allegations about the player, they didn't freeze him out (which can only exacerbate the situation), and they swiftly put him on the free transfer list so he could leave the club with minimal fuss.
Oh, don't get me started about Rooney- he literally held United hostage in public and reduced SAF to a quivering moron through his obnoxiousness. As much as I hate United, this was still bang out of order. Anyway, GET IN THERE GARETH MY SON!! HAVE IT LAD!!!
It's also coming out that Adam Johnson refused to board City's team bus the other night because Mancini criticised him in the post-match press conference for not tracking back, and didn't mention the minor issue Johnson scored one and made one. Craig Bellamy, Emmanuel Adebayor, Carlos Tevez, Shay Given, Michael Johnson, Adam Johnson - and when he was Inter coach, Alberto Fontana - that's a lot of players criticising Mancini's complete lack of man management skills...
I think that he's wanted Adam Johnson out for a while now. He never seems satisfied with his performances, no matter what he does.
The same can be said with Tevez - so expect to hear tales of Johnson refusing to play the next time Mancini decides to unite the squad is another public staging of The Crucible...
