Carlos Tevez – a day in the life …

Man on fire: Carlos Tevez ain't gonna take it no more. Photo: AFP/Getty

(A day in the life of Manchester City's rebel without a clue, as mistranslated by an evil journalist)

I am wake early, and am having nice afternoon sitting in the kitchen designing a new range of snoods and talking to butler. I like butler; sometimes I think he is only one that understand me.

The wife comes in; she look angry. This could be trouble – I don’t want her to make me move countries again. She say to butler that someone is ringing at the front door bell for many minutes and why can butler not go answer the door like he is paid to do?

I look at butler. Butler look at me.

I know I have to take a stands. I put down my snood-designing crayon.

“No way,” I say. “It’s not your place to tell butler where to come and go. I like him here in kitchen with me. We are drawing picture of snood and deciding which watch to buy today.”

I show her design of latest snood: the Tévez Freedom Fighter snood. Is picture of me and Eva Peron fighting together against injustice (represented by Mancini dressed up as the forces of oppression in a dirty scarf).

She look at picture with sneer of disgust; like Sir Ferguson when I tell him I need more pay-rise to pay for fashionable clothes and fleet of cars befitting a man of my position.

My wife says this is ridiculous and that we pay butler so we can tell him to go and do things. She says it is bad enough that she cannot get a decent empanada for love nor money in Alderley Edge, and now she cannot tell the servants what to do?

I will prove her that I am the boss around here. To make my point, I start crying until she says butler can stay.

When I am stop crying, she say: “Okay Carlos. You go answer the door yourself then.”

No way. I am not warmed up properly for that. I go to sit over by breakfast bar and avoid her gazes. This is the time for me to say “No más”. Her request is totally unreasonable.

LATER Wife is still angry and she has been on phone to Mancini. I am been exiled to sit in garden with gardener. I do not like gardener; he has little interest in snoods. I expect we shall have to move to Italy.

Owen Hargreaves: A romantic fairytale or the start of more Manchester misery?

There is a cruel joke doing the rounds on Twitter suggesting that the deal to take former Manchester United midfielder Owen Hargreaves to Manchester City has hit a snag due to an injury caused by him falling out of the transfer window.

After more than three years of injury misery, Hargreaves probably doesn’t find the wisecrack too funny, but the consolation for the 30-year-old is that he now has an incredible opportunity to prove his doubters wrong at City.

In terms of surprise moves, Hargreaves to City ranks up there with Eric Cantona from Leeds to Manchester United — on both occasions, news of the impending move was greeted with a reaction of incredulity, bewilderment and disbelief.

Nobody at City is suggesting for one minute that Hargreaves will perform for them as Cantona performed for United. The comparison between the two players ends with the initial response to their respective moves.

But while the shock of Cantona was due to Sir Alex Ferguson’s audacity and Leeds manager Howard Wilkinson’s readiness to sell to his club’s biggest rival, the wow factor of City’s move for Hargreaves relates purely to their belief that he can contribute to a team challenging for Premier League and Champions League honours.

By releasing him at the end of his contract in May, United clearly felt that a sum total of six minutes on the pitch (plus 45 minutes in the reserves) since Sept 2008 was proof enough that Hargreaves, sidelined for so long following double knee surgery, was not capable of measuring up to the demands of life at Old Trafford.

City, obviously, are planning a heavily-incentivised contract which is as good as a no-lose situation for the club.

If Hargreaves succeeds, it would be viewed as a real coup by City, plus a huge embarrassment for United, who would be perceived as having allowed a top-class player to walk out of the club for nothing.

Yet if Hargreaves fails, it will have been a gamble worth taking as nobody can doubt the player’s credentials.

When fit, he is, or was, one of the world’s best defensive midfielders, but there is a danger that romantic recollections of a player who peaked five years ago are simply teeing Hargreaves up for another fall.

The gamble of moving to City is surely all on Hargreaves’s part.

Having insisted recently that he can play 40 games a season and break into England’s Euro 2012 squad, moving to City almost certainly rules out the prospect of 40 games a season.

Had he moved to West Bromwich Albion following talks with the club last month, Hargreaves could have become a central figure at The Hawthorns — fitness permitting — and ensured that he walked into the England squad.

He simply will not play enough games at City to do that, so does he want to play every week or is he happy to play maybe 10-15 games for a club challenging for honours, but perhaps sacrificing his international ambitions at the same time?

It is a tough dilemma and there are arguments for accepting either challenge.

But maybe the biggest challenge facing Hargreaves is the one that the fans will not see — his ability to train every day and cope with the demanding regime imposed at City by Roberto Mancini, which Craig Bellamy found to be totally unsuitable to his needs following knee problems.

Getting Hargreaves on the pitch at Eastlands is one thing, ensuring he trains sufficiently, day to day, is another, as one of the cruel ironies of his time at United was the setbacks suffered on the training pitch, away from the glare of the cameras.

So more than three years since being considered a fully-fit member of Ferguson’s first-team squad, Hargreaves must now start all over again.

He has a point to prove and many will hope he succeeds. At 30, he is too young to walk away from the game and England certainly miss his contribution.

But Hargreaves at his best was all about high-energy, forceful tackles and never giving less than 100 per cent.

Three years away is a long time, however. He has missed another pre-season and has not played for almost ten months, so he is already facing an uphill battle to turn out for City in the near future.

He is at least a month away from fitness — a statement we have heard far too often about Owen Hargreaves in the last few years.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has but a few short weeks to shape the next few years for him and his club

Arsene Wenger is under increasing pressure (REUTERS)

How to create a PR disaster (part one): With your club slipping out of four competitions at the end of a season that had promised so much, thus extending a trophy drought to six years, why now wheel out your chairman to greet unhappy fans with the following statement?

“I simply cannot believe Arsene will react to these stupid comments from these silly people. They are supposed to be supporters, but, in fact, they do quite a lot of damage.”

How to create a PR disaster (part two): Despite the hurt and pain at the aforementioned collapse still hovering over the club like a dark and angry cloud, why not take the decision to raise ticket prices by 6.5 per cent? After all, you already charge some of the highest prices in Europe, so why not charge some more? Easy money.

How to create a PR disaster (part three): Let your manager insist that the club will not countenance the sale of both of your best players in the same summer. Then, a few weeks later, concede defeat and sell both.

How to create a PR disaster (part four): See your manager claim that you only want “super-quality” signings to improve the squad. Then when you balk at the price being asked for his primary defensive target, move on to a much cheaper option. Even if he has just been relegated, and missed the final four months of last season with a hamstring injury. Goodbye Phil Jagielka, hello Scott Dann.

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So far this summer, Arsenal’s PR department have been having the sort of nightmare experienced on a weekly basis by Sebastian Squillaci. Almost with every passing week, the public image of the club has deteriorated further. This week Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri will go. Next summer it could be Robin Van Persie and Theo Walcott. Could even Arsene Wenger join them in the revolving door at the Emirates marked ‘Exit’? It is by no means inconceivable, and the next three weeks will go a long way to defining the next few years for the club.

It is paramount that the club show some real ambition in the transfer market over the next 20 days. They may be rightly proud of the model of self-sufficiency they have adopted, but as has been repeated ad infinitum, football fans do not want a healthy bank balance, they want trophies. For some fans, it is perplexing to see two billionaires with major stakes in the club, yet continue to see Arsenal scratch around for the next bargain.

Never has their place in the upper echelons of the Premier League been so threatened as now.

Manchester United have strengthened significantly, a real show of ambition from a club not prepared to sit back and admire their achievements in winning the league last season. Manchester City have, predictably, spent big to bring the superb Sergio Aguero to Eastlands. Liverpool have spent heavily to immediately improve their midfield, with Jose Enrique set to fill their problem position of left-back. Chelsea have added some much-needed youth to their experienced, powerful squad. Only Tottenham have had a similarly frustrating summer to Arsenal, though at least they have kept hold of Luka Modric so far.

Despite the defensive errors that have come to characterise this Arsenal side, it comes as no real surprise that Wenger’s two major signings this summer are Gervinho – a winger/second striker – and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, a precocious attacking midfielder acquired for around £12m from Southampton. The only defensive reinforcement to arrive has been Carl Jenkinson, a 19-year-old right-back with less than 10 first-team appearances for League One side Charlton under his belt.

If ever there was a time for Arsenal to spend it is now. They must convince Van Persie and Walcott, whose contracts expire in two years’ time, that they can achieve their ambitions at the Emirates. And they can do that with some positive, morale-boosting dealings in the transfer market. If not, we will come to next summer and – just as the club have been forced to do with Nasri – Arsenal will have to sell both players to avoid losing them for nothing the following year.

But it is perhaps Wenger’s action that will be most closely monitored by the fanbase. Losing Fabregas is a grevious blow for the Frenchman. Fabregas was the emblem of this Arsenal team, the man chosen to lead the club into a brave new world following the departures of Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry. Now he too is exit-bound. That Nasri has joined the Spaniard in losing patience with the Wenger ‘project’ can only be a slap in the face for a manager who has placed such faith in his two young tyros. What can he do to pick up the pieces and rejuvenate an ailing squad?

When sections of the Emirates support booed their team off two weeks ago following the 1-1 friendly draw with New York Red Bulls, it was not an expression of dismay at missing out on lifting the Emirates Cup. At its root was a deeply-held frustration at the regular capitulations of the team at the first sign of adversity, and also anger at the club’s perceived lack of ambition at a time when it is clear that urgent surgery needs to be undertaken.

This was meant to be the summer that Arsenal were “very active”, to quote Wenger. Instead it has been a summer of anger, upset  and uncertainty, a summer which will be remembered for the departure of two of the brightest talents at the club. Arsenal have been “very active”, but it has been in terms of outgoings, rather than incomings.

Wenger is now under pressure like never before. How sad it would be if the Frenchman, who has done so much for Arsenal in his 15-year tenure, was to leave the club under a hail of anger and abuse. Undoubtedly he is partly responsible for the current situation, but the board have been more than happy to hide behind their manager and let him bear the brunt of the criticism.

Wenger deserves much more than that. But over the next 20 days, it will be up to him to change perceptions and change the fortunes of a club that have experienced a summer that could prove pivotal in its recent history.