Fergie, Sign Him Up?

The Stretford End chanted “Fergie, sign him up!” over Sir Alex Ferguson’s speech on Saturday, (rudely) showing how keenly they wanted Carlos Tevez to stay.

One contributing writer on RoM argued it was time to say goodbye to Tevez last week, but today, another begs to differ.

With a record equalling 18th League title secured, and the possibility of becoming the first club in history to retain the European Cup, in its current format, it has truly been another great season for the Reds. But is the ‘Carlos Tevez Affair’ threatening to take some of the shine off a majestic campaign.

I remember the last day of the 2006/07 season, when Carlos kept the ‘bogeymen’ of East London in the top flight with a great goal in front of the Stretford End, and as he left the field to a chorus of ‘You won’t be seeing him again’ I thought to myself, what a player he could be in the United shirt. And I was right, he was immense last season scoring 14 goals, and forming a formidable partnership or ‘Holy Trinity’ with Rooney and Ronaldo, the abundance of pace, skills and firepower of United going forward led to the retention of the Premiership and beating Chelsea in the early hours in Moscow, winning the club’s third European Cup.

With Cristiano Ronaldo deciding to remain a red and the last day addition of Dimitar Berbatov to the squad, it looked like another promising season, and one that would surely yield a bag full of goals. But it was not to be, despite playing well in almost every game, this season was more about staying solid at the back, keeping the ball and at times, grinding out wins, which occasionally looked doubtful. (Federico Macheda springs to mind). Berbatov hasn’t made the start expected; Ronaldo was never going to get near his tally of 42 goals from the previous campaign, and Tevez’s contribution, although full of energy did not bring enough goals. But we can’t complain, we have played sublime football this season, and with the prospect of retaining the European Cup in 10 days time we should all be grateful, but should Tevez really be signed up?

You can’t fault the lad’s work ethic, he’s got bags of energy and his movement causes havoc for defenders. But his touch lets him down too often and has only netted 5 times, playing 29 games, of which he started 18, the stats don’t lie, and the emotional exit from the field yesterday made it appear that perhaps he won’t be pulling on the red jersey next season. We obviously haven’t heard the end of this saga, and I can see it being drawn out all summer long. So what should Fergie do?

I think they should sign the boy up! He’s adored by the Old Trafford faithful, and never leaves the pitch not having given his all. If we don’t sign him, then another club will, and it may well come back to bite us. We wouldn’t sell the bitter Blues or the Scousers shit off the car park, but we don’t own him and he can walk away to the highest bidder, leaving us empty handed. If he doesn’t shape up next year he isn’t going to drop dramatically in value, we can cash in on him then and sell him on our terms, and if he provides the performances we know he is capable of, and has begun to show in the last few weeks, then we may long be chanting ARGENTINA!

With thanks to Dom Ansell!