Europe more important than Tevez

Wednesday, 15/02/2012

by Caroline Oatway, Shoot's Man City blogger

It may be too soon to say but it looks like Manchester City are back to winning ways.

After another disappointing setback against Everton a fortnight ago, the Blues have responded well with two wins on the bounce. An impressive 3-0 victory over Fulham was followed by a hard-earned 1-0 win over Aston Villa, and our two-point advantage at the top has been restored.

Notably, Joe Hart has been in inspired form and his wonder save in the last minute at Villa Park may well prove to be the difference in the title race at the end of the season.

But sadly, as happens so often with City, the headlines haven't been highlighting our successes. Once again, Carlos Tevez is hogging the news and once again, for all the wrong reasons.

The Argentine last week expressed his desire to return to Manchester to help the team in their hunt for silverware. Many City fans thought long and hard about whether or not the striker would be welcome back to the Etihad Stadium, and the verdict was split.

But Tevez last night made up our minds for us. He claimed that he was "treated like a dog" in his time at the club and blamed the entire sordid ordeal on manager Roberto Mancini.

A heartfelt apology and admittance of wrongdoing could well have put Tevez back in our picture. Some fans would of course still have expressed displeasure at his return, but let's be honest, we could have done with him a fair few times this season.

Still, he's once again shot himself in the foot by refusing to accept responsibility for his actions and I am almost certain now more than ever that he will never play for us again. So, that's that.

And hopefully, that will be the end of it. (Wishful thinking, I know). But we mustn't let this latest outburst spoil our good run.

We have a crucial game with Porto on Thursday in the Europa League. A win there would be fantastic but the most important thing is that we don't concede. We don't want to be chasing the game in the second leg, so a clean sheet is absolutely vital.

Since we're out of both domestic cup competitions, the Europa League presents one of our last chances for silverware so we should be looking to win it.

And if we keep up our recent good form, we'll be in a very strong position to do so. Here's hoping!

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