I want Carlos Tevez to be offered a permanent contract by Manchester United. He hasn’t been great this year but he’s already proven to us what he is capable of with his exploits last season and I think he is worthy of a place in our squad.
I’ve sided with him for much of the season, believing the club should have stuck to their promise of getting the situation sorted by Christmas. It is unfair to leave him hanging and not give him the stability of knowing he’s staying at the club.
But then he came out talking to the press about other clubs. I let it slide because I agreed with his frustrations. But then he did it again this week. Whilst I think he is fully entitled to be thinking about other clubs, given the lack job security he has with us, I think it’s out of line to go to the press.
The only thing that was saving him from my total annoyance was the possibility that the club weren’t telling Tevez they wanted him. Clearly they weren’t reassuring him with actions, given that a new contract wasn’t being sorted out, but I hoped the manager had been letting Tevez know how important he was. If they weren’t then maybe it was more excusable for Carlos to speak to the press.
Sir Alex Ferguson claims today that this hasn’t been the case.
“Whether the games he has played are important games or not is a different question but he has played in quite a few big games,” said Ferguson. “I don’t want him to be unhappy because he is an important player for us. The difficulty is when you have got the options I have got – I bought another striker in with Berbatov, as well as having the option of playing Ronaldo as a striker – you create problems for yourself because all good players want to play in every game. But they can’t play in every game in this league – it is impossible. I think he genuinely wants to stay here and that is something we are trying to work towards. I have told him that repeatedly. And there is not much more I can do.”
