Was Ferguson right not to sign Tevez?

It cannot be denied that Manchester United fans loved a certain Carlitos. The diminutive Argentine gave 100% for United and would pop up with important goals when he wore the club’s colours, prompting chants of ‘AR-GEN-TINA’ as well as the ode ‘Who’s that man from Argentina…’

At the end of last season as his 2 year loan spell was winding down, the Old Trafford faithful urged Ferguson to ‘sign him up’ but no deal was struck and Tevez left the club.

There were conflicting reports as to what actually happened; with the Argentine’s side claiming that he was not offered a deal whilst Ferguson claimed he had rejected a 5 year deal that would have made him amongst the club’s highest earners. Whatever was the case the deal was not struck and Tevez left Old Trafford.

Upon his departure Tevez was being looked at by Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and City but Tevez quickly moved to rule out Liverpool claiming the implications of moving to United’s rivals would have been grave.

Yet on July 14^th after passing a medical Tevez signed for United’s cross city rivals City (for a fee reported to have been £47m!). The betrayal was complete and from being one of United’s most loved Tevez became most hated. It did not help that after the move Tevez was accredited by the media with various disparaging quotes about United and manager, Alex Ferguson. But has Ferguson gotten away lightly having NOT signed Tevez?

For all his talent, the £25m fee that was attached to Tevez was way too high. For that price you would expect to get a striker that would certainly get you at least 20 league goals, yet in his 2 seasons at United where he made 63 league appearances, he only managed to notch 19. Apart from his spell at Brazilian giants Corinthians, Tevez has never really been prolific in front of goal. This could be put down to the fact the his is not a front man and is best playing off a striker but then United have Wayne Rooney to do that job with Rooney in my opinion being better than Tevez in all aspects apart from pressing players.

So was Sir Alex expected to pay £25m (or possibly £47m) for essentially a work horse?

Ferguson has made some bad purchases in his time but if he did pay that money then this would have ranked very high in that list. This is not to discredit Tevez as he is a good player in his own right but not worth the £25m his handlers valued him at, a sentiment echoed by Sir Alex Ferguson who too claimed,

“In my opinion, I don’t think he was worth £25m. He was popular with the supporters. The fans quite rightly have their heroes and I was happy to go along with the deal as long as it was the right one but, quite simply, he is not worth £25m.”

Now, Tevez is struggling at City after picking up an injury at the start of the season and although he is still putting in his usual high energy performances has only managed to grab 2 league goals and 4 in total leading some City fans from the Blue Moon forum to turn on him:

Work rate=great, quality=zero. Has to improve drastically because on what I’ve seen so far we’ve signed a £25mill Dickov.

Judging by comments like that, it appears Ferguson was right to let the Argentine go.