West Ham United icon Carlo Tevez has had quite the career.

He has been a star and a villain at Manchester United, was Manchester City's top scorer and then refused to play for them, moved to China to become the highest-paid player on the planet and then joined Italian giants Juventus.

Most recently, at the age of 36, he won the Argentinian league with Boca Juniors.

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Before all of that, though, he was at the Irons - another spell that was filled with talent and controversy.

Here, we walk you through his stunning career with the Hammers with the help of five pictures.

Signs for West Ham

Tevez and Javier Mascherano moved to the east London outfit two years after having helped Argentina to win the 2004 Olympics title in Athens.

Tevez himself cost the club £13.14m as per Transfermarkt, and it was a controversial transfer to Upton Park in itself - it was a deal that West Ham would later be fined for, but we will come to that later.

This was to be the start of an interesting campaign, to say the least.

Difficult start

The 36-year-old may have ended up going down as a cult hero at West Ham, but it didn't start out well for him during his one and only season there.

It would take him 20 league games to score his first goal for the club, but before that, there were plenty of examples of his hot-headed nature that would rear its ugly head throughout his career.

Against Sheffield United in November, he threw a tantrum when he was substituted off in their 1-0 victory over the Blades. His teammates decided that, as punishment, he should donate half a week's wages to charity and wear a Brazil shirt in training - he refused to do the latter.

First goal vs Tottenham

Finally, on March 4th 2007, in his 20th league appearance for the club after making the switch from Corinthians, he scored his first goal against Tottenham. By that point, he had already assisted Mark Noble's opener, and he would also create Bobby Zamora's strike later on, but it wasn't enough to help the Irons get anything from the game - they eventually lost 4-3.

Still, it was the start of a hot streak that would define his time at West Ham.

Survival goal against Manchester United

At one point, West Ham were 10 points adrift from safety, but an incredible end of season gave them a chance of survival on the final day - they won seven of their last nine matches, a run during which the Argentine scored six times

. On the final day of the campaign, they travelled to champions Manchester United still needing a point to secure safety. However, Tevez enabled them to grab all three with the only goal of the game as they won 1-0.

Sheffield United, meanwhile, were beaten 2-1 by Wigan, meaning they dropped down to the second tier.

Sheffield United protests

West Ham were already fined £5.5m in April 2007 for those transfers of Tevez and Mascherano - they breached regulations on third-party ownership - but after dropping down to the second tier, the Blades were livid.

They originally wanted the Hammers to be docked points rather than fined, but that didn't go their way, before finally suing the Hammers for £50m.

In the end, the two settled out of court for £18.1m, and it was to be the last defining saga of Tevez's short but stunning spell with the Hammers.