Tevez to be stripped of captaincy and forced to stay?

Weather permitting, Manchester City take to the field at Eastlands tonight to play Everton, knowing that a win would take them to the top of the table, albeit having played more games than the rest.

Infiltrate

That is a great position for the club to be in as they continue to try to infiltrate the top four and become genuine title contenders. They have the manager, they have the players, they have the fans and they certainly have the money. All they need to do is put it all together and make a team who can do it consistently.

The leader of the team on the pitch plays a crucial role in helping to drive the team forward and shape the way the players react and respond to situations. The captain has to be a club man and team man first, before he even begins to think about himself.

Cause

You can look at the likes of John Terry at Chelsea, Ferdinand at United, Gerrard at Liverpool, Davies at Bolton, Parker at West Ham, etc, etc, and you know that they would all die for the cause of their teams.

It is against that scenario that City boss Roberto Mancini has to decide whether or not his want away captain Carlos Tevez is the right man to keep the job.

Leave

Nobody could ever say that Tevez gives anything less than 100% every time he takes to the field, but can a player captain a side which he wants to leave and a club with whom he appears to have fallen out of love?

It is likely that Tevez will be stripped of the captaincy and the armband will be handed to former skipper Kolo Toure. That would seem to be the only sensible decision although it is hardly likely to cheer up the Argentinean striker and make him any happier to be where he is.

Request

Mancini and Tevez met on Friday to discuss the written transfer request submitted by Tevez. It isn’t known what the outcome of those discussions were but the club have made it very clear that they have no intention of letting the player leave.

City’s football administrator Brian Marwood said on Friday that he expects Tevez to honour the contract he signed to stay at Eastlands until July 2014. Mancini himself has also said that he wants to Tevez to stay.

Play

“He is our player and I hope he continues to play and score for us.”

Tevez has said he wants to leave the club because of an irreparable breakdown in his relationship with “certain executives”. I have no idea what that means and I also have no idea why a player would have any sort of relationship with the executives of the club.

Shadowy

Tevez’s advisor, owner, manager, whatever the shadowy figure of Kia Joorabchian actually is, has said that the main reason his player wants to leave is because they failed to qualify for the Champions League. That seems strange, halfway through a season in which they are still in the Europa League and have a great chance of qualifying for next season’s Champions League.

Whatever the reason may be, just seventeen months into a five year contract Tevez has asked to leave. The reasons are mysterious and difficult to fathom. City are determined to keep him and with thirty-nine goals to his name in those seventeen months, why would they not be?

Maybe it is time for a club to show that player power has gone far enough. Refuse to let him leave, strip him of the captaincy and see if he is still prepared to fight for City’s cause.