World's richest club incapable of winning without short man up front

The sports pages of the newspapers - which are just the men's equivalent of Heat or Now magazine - have been full of news of Carlos Tevez.

Manchester City, the world's richest club with stacks of so-called world-class players at their disposal, have been outright panicking because of rumours that Tevez is homesick and is considering moving back to Argentina (or perhaps Real Madrid, which can quite often be the destination of homesick player, whatever their provenance).

They have a right to be worried. Despite having Adebayor, Santa Cruz, Jo and Balotelli to pick up front, it is clear for all the world to see that if Tevez is not in their team, they don't win. Simple as that.

This most expensively assembled of squads just ended a three-match losing streak. It started with the 3-0 pounding against Arsenal, when Tevez went off with an injury. Then he didn't play against Wolves, or Lech Poznan and they were beaten again and they were a game away from a full-blown crisis with Mancini's head on the chopping block.

Tevez returns for today's clash against the Baggies and they suddenly, miraculously, get back to winning ways.

No wonder they are rumoured to be offering him a monster 250k a week contract. Mancini and all Man City fans know very well that if they didn't have their short man up front, they would be a mid-table team, and perhaps even worse than Liverpool. Man Utd might not have truly known the value of their short man, but City certainly do.