What is more desperate

Mr Ferguson vs Patrick Vieira

Patrick Vieira says: Man United are desperate for bringing back Scholes from retirement

Mr Ferguson says: City are desperate in bringing Tevez back after Mancini said he'd never play for the club again

Who is right?

Neither. They both appear to have been pretty sensible decisions.

christmasborocooper wrote:Neither. They both appear to have been pretty sensible decisions.

Don't think City would have brought Tevez back if they were clear at the top myself, the whole affair is a bit embarrassing IMO. Tevez refused to come on and play, then went AWOL for most of the season, Mancini said he'd never play again for City and now he suddenly comes back and is the hero?

Agree that neither is a bad move in a footballing sense but City are worse IMO and Vieira should have kept quiet.

Both are pretty desperate but in terms of which one damages the manager's credibility more, it's definitely Mancini bringing back Tevez despite saying firmly that he would never play for the club again (as should have been the case).

Who is right, Patoche or Sir Cuntface. I know it's Friday afternoon Luis but come on, ask us a difficult question

Given the pressure on Mancini to win the EPL he is in a more desperate situation than Ferguson. Man City should get their own house in order looks to me it could spin off the tracks at any time.

Vieira is right, Ferguson is a right c**t.

If manu needed a midfielder then they should have bought one. How can "one of the richest clubs" in the world not afford it?

Why is Ferguson saying anything about man city? Because he is scared, so time for the mind games. No doubt he'll be putting pressure on refs etc next.

Scholes coming back was as much player decision as club, no? Him and Giggs have always had contract as long as they want one. Don't see it as desperate from the club point of view.

Bringing back Tevez definitely appears more desperate, given what Mancini said about it previously.

Luis wrote:

christmasborocooper wrote:Neither. They both appear to have been pretty sensible decisions.

Don't think City would have brought Tevez back if they were clear at the top myself

[/quote]


well, der!

If City didn't need Tevez then they wouldn't need him. It would be sillier if they didn't utilise such an assist in my humble opinion to be fair at the end of the day.

Ferguson on Mancini October 2011:

"The City boss's reaction was spot-on and sent a clear message to the rest of the players, not just at Eastlands but throughout the game. His handling of the situation distinguished him in managerial terms. I always admire the courage to do right, and that is what we are seeing here."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/oct/22/sir-alex-ferguson-mancini-tevez

At least Ferguson is being consistent in his recent criticism, given Mancini was adamant he wouldn't play for the club again.

Viera is the shit stirrer in all of this, as it was him and not Mancini who made the Scholes comment. He clearly thinks he's ready to play mind games. But in reality he has a head shaped like a malteser and is the biggest sell out in football along with Peter Kenyon. Arsenal "legend" responsible for stripping his old club of their best players, all for the Arab money.

Meanwhile, Paul Scholes retired, Man United didn't retire him, infact as I understand it Fergie was reluctant for him to hang his boots up in the first place. So nothing unusual in them taking him back when he decided to reverse his decision. Any other club and we'd probably be applauding them, both the loyal long term status of the player with the club and the club backing the player.

I wouldn't be applauding the bringing back of Scholes. He has been lucky he hasn't yet ended the career of another footballer with one of his "tackles". Bringing him back when he's a bit slower etc has just increased the risk.

How will you feel if he ends the career of the Ox for example and the knock-on effect of that, e.g. denying England the chance of winning the world cup in Brasil and Allez won't have to chance for a Lennon avatar.

All for the occasional nice pass

110% wrote:I wouldn't be applauding the bringing back of Scholes. He has been lucky he hasn't yet ended the career of another footballer with one of his "tackles". Bringing him back when he's a bit slower etc has just increased the risk.

How will you feel if he ends the career of the Ox for example and the knock-on effect of that, e.g. denying England the chance of winning the world cup in Brasil and Allez won't have to chance for a Lennon avatar.

All for the occasional nice pass

Scholes isn't a good tackler, but come on, he was/is no Shawcross/Van Bommel/De Jong, or even Roy Keane.

How many players careers has he ended? Or, for that matter, seriously injured? He's only played the 800 or so games, plenty of time to have wrecked someone's career if he really was that reckless. Another season isn't going to see him breaking any legs, pretty certain of that.

110% is just trolling/fishing Bernd as I'm sure you know, not that he doesn't have a point. Meanwhile we have the usual sycophantic crawling to Ferguson and United one expects from Tottenham fans. You will have to do better to get a rise even on a quiet Friday

Metta World Peace wrote:
Meanwhile, Paul Scholes retired, Man United didn't retire him, infact as I understand it Fergie was reluctant for him to hang his boots up in the first place. So nothing unusual in them taking him back when he decided to reverse his decision. Any other club and we'd probably be applauding them, both the loyal long term status of the player with the club and the club backing the player.

Exactly.

Although if i'm totally honest I couldn't give a flying fuck either way.

Who cares,one club is the devils club who get help from the officials in England and the other is a small mercenary club.Both are Manc clubs as well.

Fuck them both.

Allez les rouges wrote:110% is just trolling/fishing Bernd as I'm sure you know, not that he doesn't have a point. Meanwhile we have the usual sycophantic crawling to Ferguson and United one expects from Tottenham fans. You will have to do better to get a rise even on a quiet Friday

Considering we get spanked by them every season, including some extremely dubious refereeing decisions:





and Carrick's penalty at OT in 2009

shouldn't that be "despite being Tottenham fans"?

If we're being serious though, I'm not quite sure what Fergie has done wrong here. Commended Mancini when the Tevez situation occurred last year, and quite rightly responded to Viera's pop at Scholes now that City have backed down and taken Tevez back. Even the most ardent ABU like you are sensible enough to see there is only one club looking (very vaguely) "desperate" here. Can't blame City either though, remove sentiment and it's a business decision that makes perfect sense to bring back one of their most important assets, particularly if they want to move him on next season

Nah. Both decisions are more than justifiable in footballing terms, but the return of the 37-year-old is the more desperate, an acknowledgement of their utterly barren midfield. (And how poor is it that no PL side seems to have the ability/balls to give them the midfield runaround as unabashedly and comprehensively as Bilbao just did.) It's not as if City are bereft of attacking talent with Balotelli, Dzeko and Agüero apart from Silva, Nasri, Touré, Johnson and co.

The Tevez issue is the more embarrassing volte-face, and infinitely more shamelessly hypocritical, on Mancini's part at least, but it's not quite the same thing.

Do you see what I mean? Or am I just being a semantic/pedantic end-bell?

Oh and indeed, I will never understand your lot's fawning tolerance of United given your embarrassing surrender-monkey record against them. Presumably they is two sides of the same coin.

They are both wrong but in different ways.

Mancini(excellent as he may be) is gambling his future authority at the club. He was correct to put Tevez in his place and he proved a point which was underscored by the fact that City transitioned seemlessly to the top of the table without him after initial worries that Tevez was the key player in attack and they would have trouble without him. If Tevez doesn't cause further problems this season and Tevez helps the team like against Chelsea then it might be worth it if they win the league. The reason it is a gamble on the future is that we don't know how strongly Mancini stands in the dressingroom after conceeding, even if it is for the short term benefit of the club. To keep it short, Mancini might win the title this season but could lose the squad in future seasons.

Bringing Scholes back however is an indictment of the planning done by SAF in the summer. Given that United didn't have a clear first choice leader in midfield after the summer transfers it isn't that bad a move. Buying somebody new by winter would have been hard in terms of quality/price/transition period and given that SAF is betting on Cleverly it would hamper his prospects. I'm not that impressed with Cleverly and I think they should have gone for an established player like Modric.

Super Saviour wrote:Mancini(excellent as he may be) is gambling his future authority at the club. He was correct to put Tevez in his place and he proved a point which was underscored by the fact that City transitioned seemlessly to the top of the table without him after initial worries that Tevez was the key player in attack and they would have trouble without him. If Tevez doesn't cause further problems this season and Tevez helps the team like against Chelsea then it might be worth it if they win the league. The reason it is a gamble on the future is that we don't know how strongly Mancini stands in the dressingroom after conceeding, even if it is for the short term benefit of the club. To keep it short, Mancini might win the title this season but could lose the squad in future seasons.

I think this is just about right. And I think the reason Mancini himself is willing to make the gamble is because surely in the back of his mind he will be thinking, if he doesn't win the league he may well get the sack and if that's the case who cares about future seasons.

Tevez' return has been on Mancini's terms, so this is hardly a massive u-turn. Tevez tried and failed to get out of Manchester City cheaply and the club refused to let him go cut price - good for them. The u-turn was done by Tevez really, so Mancini let him play, but only after Tevez backed down. Don't really see what Mancini did wrong. He previously said Tevez could play if he apologised. Tevez told him to piss off and then Mancini said he would not play. Tevez thought he could bide his time and go on his terms, but he thought wrong. Mancini got what he wanted.

You think Tevez's apology really meant anything? It was just a bullshit PR statement made so that he could start getting his 200k a week again. Come summer, he'll be out again.

I agree with Super, this damages Mancini's credibility in the squad. Every big player in that club now knows they can do what they want, and if the club needs them, they can be pardoned by saying a few meaningless words.

fcb wrote:You think Tevez's apology really meant anything? It was just a bullshit PR statement made so that he could start getting his 200k a week again. Come summer, he'll be out again.

I agree with Super, this damages Mancini's credibility in the squad. Every big player in that club now knows they can do what they want, and if the club needs them, they can be pardoned by saying a few meaningless words.

Of course, but Tevez thought that he could he force his way out on his terms. He found that he couldn't. Mancini has got the player back with his authority in tact as much as possible. He can still force Tevez to stay put until the price is met. Tevez may well have had his fingers crossed behind his back, but he still had to say them after insisting he did nothing wrong.

EMP wrote:Tevez' return has been on Mancini's terms, so this is hardly a massive u-turn. Tevez tried and failed to get out of Manchester City cheaply and the club refused to let him go cut price - good for them. The u-turn was done by Tevez really, so Mancini let him play, but only after Tevez backed down. Don't really see what Mancini did wrong. He previously said Tevez could play if he apologised. Tevez told him to piss off and then Mancini said he would not play. Tevez thought he could bide his time and go on his terms, but he thought wrong. Mancini got what he wanted.

You would be right if Mancini hadn't said that he would NEVER play for the club. If he had merely maintained his stance that Tevez should apologize first then yes Mancini would be the winner...
However Mancini did ban him from the club and took him back at a time where the club was struggling with their strikers. The lasting effect will not be "Mancini stood his ground" but that in desperate times he will cave in.

Super Saviour wrote:

EMP wrote:Tevez' return has been on Mancini's terms, so this is hardly a massive u-turn. Tevez tried and failed to get out of Manchester City cheaply and the club refused to let him go cut price - good for them. The u-turn was done by Tevez really, so Mancini let him play, but only after Tevez backed down. Don't really see what Mancini did wrong. He previously said Tevez could play if he apologised. Tevez told him to piss off and then Mancini said he would not play. Tevez thought he could bide his time and go on his terms, but he thought wrong. Mancini got what he wanted.

You would be right if Mancini hadn't said that he would NEVER play for the club. If he had merely maintained his stance that Tevez should apologize first then yes Mancini would be the winner...
However Mancini did ban him from the club and took him back at a time where the club was struggling with their strikers. The lasting effect will not be "Mancini stood his ground" but that in desperate times he will cave in.

You don't think that the others butting in are doing so to undermine Manchester City. Tevez is a City player. Mancini has every right to play him and he made Tevez back down play. If Tevez helps City win the league, will anyone care? OOthers will keep a very close eye on Tevez now and any future contract may have no strike clause. Really don't think Tevez has won anything from his antics, whereas Mancini might.

EMP wrote:

Super Saviour wrote:

EMP wrote:Tevez' return has been on Mancini's terms, so this is hardly a massive u-turn. Tevez tried and failed to get out of Manchester City cheaply and the club refused to let him go cut price - good for them. The u-turn was done by Tevez really, so Mancini let him play, but only after Tevez backed down. Don't really see what Mancini did wrong. He previously said Tevez could play if he apologised. Tevez told him to piss off and then Mancini said he would not play. Tevez thought he could bide his time and go on his terms, but he thought wrong. Mancini got what he wanted.

You would be right if Mancini hadn't said that he would NEVER play for the club. If he had merely maintained his stance that Tevez should apologize first then yes Mancini would be the winner...
However Mancini did ban him from the club and took him back at a time where the club was struggling with their strikers. The lasting effect will not be "Mancini stood his ground" but that in desperate times he will cave in.

You don't think that the others butting in are doing so to undermine Manchester City. Tevez is a City player. Mancini has every right to play him and he made Tevez back down play. If Tevez helps City win the league, will anyone care? OOthers will keep a very close eye on Tevez now and any future contract may have no strike clause. Really don't think Tevez has won anything from his antics, whereas Mancini might.

Nobody says that Mancini doesn't have the right to play him. The point is that he said that Tevez would NEVER play. Mancini doesn't have to account to us or the media or whoever. But he is responsible for the squad and their behaviour. That is why I saw that taking Tevez back, even if it means a league title, could be a gamble on his future authority in the team. Mancini might have calculated this and has simply decided that it is worth it. Time will tell.