The Problem with Carlos Tevez

Well, as a United fan, I get a certain degree of pleasure from witnessing all these events unfold with Tevez at city. Mancini says he will never play for the club again, Tevez says he was misunderstood. A club in crisis? Not quite. A club with too many big-headed ego-inflated players? Definitely.

With Dzeko getting in a strop after being subbed off and Tevez ‘refusing’ to play it’s a bit of a farce. Throw into the mix Balotelli and you have 3 centre forwards that don’t seem to show any regard for their manager, the club or any discipline.

But, with Tevez, really, Man City fans should have seen it coming. If we track Tevez’s senior career, it looks like this:

Club	Transfer Fee Paid	Joined	Left	Appearances	Goals
Boca Juniors	-	2001	2004	75	26
Corinthians	£13.7 million	2004	2006	38	25
West Ham United	£12 million	2006	2007	29	7
Manchester United	Loan	2007	2009	97	34
Manchester City	£27 million	2009	-	91	53

Figures taken from BBC football

Notice two things about Carlos Tevez? Firstly, he has scored goals at a very high rate for every club he has been at. And secondly, and more importantly from the aspect of this blog, he has never been at a club for more than three years.

There is also an argument that at each of his past clubs, he has caused problems and aggravated a move away from that club (except Boca).

If we start with his earliest club, Boca Juniors, surprisingly he left the club under quite ordinary circumstances. He had won all he could with the club (winning Copa Sudamericana, Copa Libertadores and Intercontinental Cup in 2003) he decided to leave at the end of the 2004 season.

At Corinthians, Tevez caused a major stir by becoming part of the biggest ever deal of South American football. After the Brazilian giants agreed a fee of £13.7 million for the Argentinean, they agreed to offer him a £6.75 million 5-year (£1.35 million a year) contract which was funded in-part by the now infamous Media Sports Investments - enter Kia Joorabchian.

After captaining the club to the 2005 Brazilian league title, he was named the best player of the league season. However, it all went sour for Corinthians as Tevez refused to play any further part for the club and announced that he, along with Javier Mascherano, had been granted a move to the Premier League with West Ham United.

Tevez is more than likely to spit his dummy out after 2 season at any club.

The proposed move went through and West Ham had pulled off a remarkable transfer coup on the 31st August 2006. However, this transfer has now gone down in history because, with the purchase of Tevez and Mascherano - who were partly owned by Kia Joorabchian's Media Sports Investments - came a whirlwind of problems. This culminated in a fine of £5.5 million for the East London club and the payment of £4 million a year in compensation to Sheffield United for five seasons.

Following this, more controversy revolved around Tevez and his ever-present representative Kia Joorabchian. After rejecting an apparent move to Italy to play for Inter Milan or AC Milan, Tevez fell out with West Ham and demanded a move once he heard Manchester United were interested. A transfer saga followed which eventually ended with Tevez going on a 2-year loan deal to Man Untied. Strangely the player was loaned from Media Sports Investments rather than West Ham, although a fee was paid to the London club in the region of £4 million.

At United, Tevez made himself into a hero and a crowd favourite, only to ruin it all by moving to neighborly rivals Man City. He complained that United didn’t offer him a decent enough contract for a player of his stature, a statement which was refuted by Fergie who claimed the club had offered to make Tevez the highest paid player at United.

Fast-forward to 2011, and the trouble that Tevez is causing at his present club. After moaning about everything and anything to get out of the club in December, being quoted to say that he will never return to Manchester as there was nothing to do and insisting he must move closer to his family (it surprises me how much closer apparently Italy or Spain is to Argentina than England) he eventually ended up staying in the blue half of Manchester and withdrew a transfer request. As a move never materialised to a new club, Tevez stated he would give his all for City and even in an interview after the Bolton game stated, "I’m happy at City and I’m not moving from there”. 

Kia Joorabchian, not welcome at Old Trafford or in World Football.

He doesn’t strike me as a player that is happy when he refuses to come on as a 2nd half substitute. You can tell that he is still angling for that move, and you can only feel that as much as the player makes his own decision, he is probably being influenced by Kia Joorabchian.

I feel, after looking at Tevez’s past and his continued involvement with Kia Joorabchian, only trouble and problems will follow him where ever he goes. Manchester City should have seen this coming and have only themselves to blame. Although with a club full of superstars it will not be easy to keep them all happy and seemingly only a matter of time before the wheels began to come off.

This attitude from Tevez in Munich has caused an angry but necessary reaction from Mancini. The Italian will be hoping that his firm stance with Tevez, insisting that he will never play under him again, will scare others into keeping their discipline.

All that is left to do is for Manchester City to get rid of Tevez to the highest bidder and, more importantly, the Premier League and FIFA to get rid of any involvement Kia Joorabchian has in world football.

Dave

Scottish Fiction

For the last few weeks I have been captivated by Redwhiteandblue pod’s epic #onelastgame, which has seen Football Manager fans from across the globe take control of Bala FC in the Welsh Premier League and battle it out for five seasons to try to achieve glory.

This game got me thinking, could teams from the Welsh and Scottish leagues cut it in the English football league system? Well under my stewardship, if #onelastgame has taught me anything, the answer is almost certainly no.

Bala Town, the new favourite Welsh club for many.

But what if we consider the two Old Firm teams from Scotland. Recently there has been a number of discussions about combining both Celtic and Rangers into the English Premier League, this would break their monopoly of success in Scotland, present them with a bigger challenge and improve the competitiveness of the Scottish Premier League. But could Celtic and Rangers cut the mustard in the Premiership? 

The answer, in a nutshell, is yes and no, well more specifically, no and then yes. Currently the calibre of each side is below that of the English Premier League. There are several examples of players who are topping all the charts north of the border, only to be brought down to earth with a bump when they take on careers in England.

Kenny Miller for example, managed only 4 goals for Premiership whipping boys Derby County (who finished with a record low amount of points). He then moved to Rangers and in three seasons put away 55 goals, winning the Scottish Premiership and Cup along the way.

James Mcfadden, despite a decent career in England has also struggled to recapture his form that persuaded Everton to part with their cash: his goal tally in Scotland, 32 in 70 games was only reached in England after 227.

Kris Boyd too had a glittering career for Kilmarnock and Rangers notching up a whopping 195 goals during his time in Scotland. Since Gordon Strachan signed him for Middlesbrough, he has managed just 12 goals, in the Championship – quite a difference.

There are of course a number of factors to consider and it would be unwise and perhaps even insulting to argue that both teams would struggle on the basis of a few strikers’ poor goal scoring records. However, the gulf in ability is prominent, not just between England but the rest of Europe as well. Their poor record in Europe led to their Champions League qualifying places being reduced from two to one.

The gulf between Scottish Premiership teams and English Premiership teams is due, in no small part to the difference in television revenue that each club receives.

This delight on Boyd's face was rarely seen south of the border.

Currently Scottish teams receive, on average, a share of around £13million each season for television rights, whereas teams in the Premiership receive on average £40million each per season. With this increase in revenue, the Old Firm sides would be able to stump up more for wages and be able to be competitive in the transfer market to improve their squads to Premiership standards.

It’s not just money that they’d be able to use as an incentive to lure players to the club, the attraction of the Premier League is well established with many players from across the world eyeing a move to England to compete in “the best league in the world.”

Right now, the two Old Firm sides would struggle in the Premiership, their squads are not talented enough and the pace of the game is much faster. However if they could survive for the first season, they’d be far better equipped to improve their sides, adjust to the rigors of a full Premiership season, and coupled with their extensive and passionate fan base, build a side that is capable of competing regularly in England’s top flight. The question is do we, as Englishmen, want them in our league?

My opinion? No. Not because I don’t want the Scots in our league, I just think it’s a daft idea. Why take just those two teams? What happens when two other teams in Scotland become better than anyone? Do we put them into the league system here too? If we’re integrating two Scottish sides as well as the existing six Welsh sides scattered throughout the English league system, why not have a UK league? Put all the teams from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland too into one big UK league.

You’d have to restructure the league system, and probably add another division, but it’s possible, I think. Well I haven’t really got much time to think about it, Bala FC are leaking goals at the moment and face top of the table Port Talbot next, I need to go and prepare. 

Owain 

Are you loan-some tonight?

Although presumably not about the state of the current transfer market, legendary recording artist Mic Boogie seems to have stumbled across a fundamental truth about modern Association Football when he declared 'everybody's doing it'.

Loan signings have undoubtedly shaped the current league tables, from Manchester United's loan signing of Henrik Larsson to Carlisle's ‘most famous’ ever (non)player.

Not that there is a problem with this, loan signings are very often a win-win situation for both the clubs and the player involved; a young player gains valuable first team football experience while the club taking him on get a player they might not otherwise be able to afford.

Henrik's happy, Man Utd were happy and the fans were happy.

However, with the ever-growing size of top squads and the stricter rules regarding player registration, players are increasingly available for loan and increasingly seen by chairmen and managers as quick-fix solutions.

Take the curious case of Slobodan Rajkovic for example; an international centre back who Chelsea originally signed from his native Serbia nearly six years ago. However he failed to make an appearance in a competitive match for the West London club, making over 60 while out on loan in the proving ground of the Eredivisie, and was recently sold to Hamburg.

This is merely the crux of the problem, the readily available short and long-term loan deals means that top clubs can effectively stockpile talent, safe in the knowledge that they will be able to play football at a sufficient level to continue their education in the game.

Some people may argue that clubs have always stockpiled young talent: isn't the function of the reserve side largely for just that purpose? Perhaps it is, but there is a difference in having a second side made up of almost exclusively of home grown academy graduates, and a side boasting capped internationals from all corners of the globe.

Chelsea fans, recognise this player? No, of course you don't.

In February whilst Arsenal were suffering a second half collapse against Newcastle United, their roster included 10 players showcasing themselves at other clubs including Armand Traore at Juventus. This was far from uncommon, former-Gunner Emmanuel Adebayor spent the season on loan at the iconic Real Madrid from his relatively new home at Manchester City. In fact, this February Arsenal, Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspurs, Chelsea and Liverpool boasted an impressive 66 players out on loan at other clubs.

While this included young players learning their trade at the Lincolns and Leyton Orients of the football league, the fact that others could have been winning Champions League medals or banging in Premiership goals for fun surely highlights the absurdity of this situation.

This season has seen no change to the situation either. Adebayor is once again amongst the big-name loan signings, now playing at Spurs, a situation that means that the club whose shirt he wears each Saturday will be battling the club to whom he's registered for league positions.

And this phenomenon isn't just restricted to the Premiership. Just three years ago Grenada CF were a struggling club on the brink of bankruptcy, but an agreement with Italy's Udinese brought the opportunity to loan young and fringe players. Twelve Udinese players turned out for the Andalucía club last season, bringing with them promotion.

Adebayor has so far been a success, but will he still be there next season?

Now in La Liga, Grenada have been tipped by many to head straight back down again. Whilst the realists on the terraces of the Estadio Nuevo Los Cármenes might be happy with a healthy club and a spell in the glare of the top division, will other fans be able to recognise this as the false dawn that this probably is?

But what can be done about this? One would have thought that the tightening of player registration could help rectify the situation, and perhaps it will. However, the financial might of the big clubs currently means that they can continue to stockpile talent and loan the players out to continue their education.

Surely the current rules of eight standard loan players (plus two emergency loan signings), with five included in the starting line-up are too lax. If almost half a squad aren't registered to your club then surely this is not right.

The FA, it’s over to you! 

Jim

The Joy of Stats – In Potency

With the strikers main task to put the ball in the back of the net as regularly as possible there is surely one statistic that defines their goal scoring prowess, his ratio of games per goal. There was a time when I could be found trawling through the Wikipedia pages of strikers gone by to find the best and worst ratios, this time I decided to narrow my search and concentrate solely on the strikers of the Premier league.

Here is how I conducted the research; the Wikipedia page of every Premier league club has a ‘current squad’ section with positions defined into GK, DF, MF etc. So for every player who had a FW position I added them to the list. The statistics for more gravitas however came from BBC Sport, what follows is an analysis of my findings.

This analysis was carried out on a grand total of 119 players who have scored over 8,000 goals in 26,000 games between them. Obviously some players’ careers are in their infancy so for fairness I’ve only included players who have played 50 or more senior career games.

As with any leader board we shall start at the bottom, players mentioned here are somewhat stealing a living and kidding themselves when they call themselves a striker, as they clearly couldn’t hit a barn door with a banjo.

The Bottom 3 are as follows (and to be honest I’m not very surprised with any of them)

3. Victor Anichebe – he averages a colossal goal every 9.3 games, extrapolate over a whole season Evertonians could expect to see him bag season defining 4 goals. Yes he’s sometimes played out of position, yes his hard work helps others, but seriously 13 goals in 121 games, no wonder Everton struggle for goals.

2. Franco Di Santo – head and shoulders above of Anichebe, Di Santo will score your team a goal every 18 games, he already has two this season (which amazingly doubled his career total) so Wigan fans, that’s him done.

1. Nile Ranger – Now when I’ve seen him he’s not been too bad, but boy do the statistics not back this up. Ranger will again get you two goals in a season, but his ratio is at 19.3 games per goal. Mike Ashley, do you wish you had bought a new striker now? 

Nile Ranger: He shoots...he misses

Other worthy mentions of players down at the bottom are David N’Gog who gets a goal every 5.6 games therefore being the 12th worst ratio. Then two players who have played more than 700 games between them, quite often at a lower standard, have only scored just over 100 goals yet somehow find themselves on the books of Premiership clubs, Mamady Sidibe and Patrick Agyemang I’m talking about you.

Now I’m afraid I’m going to keep you waiting for the top awards (place your bets now for who you think has the best ratio) by offering you another piece of analysis, the clubs strike force. Now to make this fair I have narrowed it down to strike partnerships as with some clubs their third striker is either a youth striker or just not as good as their main two. At the bottom of the list we have Stoke City, their most potent partnership of Kenwyne Jones and Peter Crouch average a goal every 3.3 games. Rory Delap keep pumping those throws into the box, they’ll get on the end of them eventually. Somewhat surprisingly next is Aston Villa, mainly due to Darren Bent being let down by his partner. Agbonlahor and Bent would average a goal every 3.2 games, yet Bent alone has a ratio of 2.3 games per goal. The Top six in the list is comprised of 5 of the Top 6 six sides from last year the one that is missing is Arsenal they have an abysmal partnership average of 3 games per goal, the 5th worst in the league (for those interested it’s Van Persie and Young). Norwich City are the side that complete the Top 6 as they seem to have already analysed these statistics before purchasing their strikers as Morison and Holt both have very impressive ratios (yes this weren’t Premier league goals but a goals a goal here).

Right...to the top of the list the facts and figures you’ve all been waiting for!

3. Carlos Tevez – The want away striker averages a goal every two games in his career, yet it’s even better for his current club Man City, averaging a goal ever 1.7 games. He may want to go but on this showing City will want to keep him (as if they didn’t know that already)

2. Luis Suarez – The man was a sensation in Holland and many Scousers think he could turn out to be as influential for them. With a ratio of 1.7 games per goal he should get you 22 goals a season.

1. Edin Dzeko – When he joined Man City in January almost everyone thought wow this lad will do well...until he played that was and then the fans were wondering if they had a dud on their hands. The new season has come around and a new Dzeko has turned up scoring goals a plenty. He needs to keep that up if he wants to keep his average up, as with a goal ever 1.6 games he’s statistically the most potent striker in the Premier league. 

Looking like this I think the only place Tevez scores is on the pitch

Other worthy mentions for strikers at the top end of the league are Demba Ba, who might find himself carrying a large weight of expectation for goals on his shoulders at St James’ Park as he is 10th with a goal every 2.3 games, better than Wayne Rooney at 2.4 and Jermain Defoe at 2.4 also.

A statistic that surprised me was that out of the 119 forwards analysed only 35 have played more than 50 games for their current club, the search for success at clubs seemingly lies with the strike force, so when the club isn’t performing new strikers are being sought as the solution as they do say goals win games.

Finally below are few trivia questions to keep your mind busy –

1. Which striker has scored the most goals in his career?

2. Which striker has made the most career appearances?

3. Which striker has made the most career appearances for his current club?

4. Which striker has scored the most goals for his current club?

If anyone would like the spreadsheet I created for this analysis please tweet me. 

Josh