Carlos Tévez once claimed that Roberto Mancini had treated him “like a dog”. Tomorrow we will find out if he has become an obedient one.
During the match against Chelsea at the Etihad Stadium, there could be a delicious moment when Mancini turns and signals to Tévez to prepare himself to come off the bench.
We have, of course, been here before: Tévez refused to budge when called to face Bayern Munich in the Champions League last September. This time we expect the Argentina striker to trot up and down the touchline dutifully, strip off his tracksuit and do what he is paid £200,000 a week to do.
It is not much cause to celebrate, but for Mancini at least, there will be the small comfort that he has stayed true to one of Sir Alex Ferguson’s most valued tenets, one that has helped underpin his decades of success: that the manager can never lose an argument. The Italian will have won and, with that knowledge, the fans should relax.
There will be some who do not want Tévez back, who prefer to risk losing the title to Manchester United rather than call on their loathed former captain.
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Tévez was initially jeered when he came on for the reserves last week and no one expects City supporters to hail the man who, to borrow the phrase used by Graeme Souness that infamous night in September, “epitomises what the man in the street thinks is wrong with modern football”.
Which fan would want to cheer the guy who has gone out of his way to cause so much trouble, who has slagged off his adopted city, the board and the manager, put in a transfer request, refused to warm up and, worst of all, gone missing in South America for months?
But Mancini is doing what he thinks is right for his team in the short term, and the club in the longer term. And as City supporters try to make sense of their conflicting emotions, that is what counts.
Mancini has been backed throughout by the club’s hierarchy and City supporters should support their manager in the same way, hoping above all that their errant forward is not returning to a team who are losing their way in the title race.
Who knows if Tévez can make a decisive impact? We have not seen him kick a ball for almost six months. The revitalisation of David Silva matters far more.
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But a squad with Tévez should be stronger than one without him and, if Mancini has any reservations, he has only to glance at the Barclays Premier League table, where United are back on top after five months trailing City.
United’s surge is not the reason behind Tévez’s return — Mancini would have had him back in the squad months ago if only the player had been willing to make an apology — but one look at the table can concentrate everyone’s mind.
Tévez returns on the manager’s terms: the apology was offered and he has been given a severe punishment. He was fined £400,000 for failing to warm up, with another £1.2 million for going Awol, and not paid from the end of November until mid-February (another £2 million), having already lost £6.5 million in loyalty bonuses.
Now he is back on the payroll and perhaps he will score a crucial goal, perhaps he won’t. In an ideal world, City would not have to find out, leaving the striker’s role to Sergio Agüero and Mario Balotelli instead. But there is a first title since 1968 at stake, the champions and local rivals to overcome, and it is hard to see what Mancini will be risking provided that Tévez continues to work as diligently as he is said to have done in the past month.
It is not so easy for the fans, who will remain conflicted. They would prefer to look at their team and believe the players care for the club as much as they do, a pretence that Tévez dropped last summer.
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But for those who can never forgive the striker, they can look at his return this way — selling a player who has run around, perhaps scored a few goals, will be a lot easier than selling one who has been playing golf or sitting on a beach piling on the pounds.
City will never recoup the £47 million they paid for him but a few good performances might persuade someone to stump up more than the €24 million (now about £20 million) offered by AC Milan in January.
Putting up with Tévez in the short term may well prove the best way of not having to put up with him beyond the summer. And then we can all wave him off.
Until then, the City fans don’t have to like him, but they might as well use him — especially now he’s back on a day rate of almost £30,000.
• A young international footballer lies stricken on the pitch, watched by millions live on television and thousands in the stadium, after a cardiac arrest. Who, observing at home or at White Hart Lane, hearing the news on television or reading it on Twitter, would not be filled with sympathy, even if they have no prior knowledge of, or particular interest in, Fabrice Muamba?
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I only ask because there has been so much talk about how football’s family have come together and pride at how the fans have put aside their tribalism. Certainly we should hope that the emotional reaction to Muamba’s shocking collapse has been some solace to his family and, as he regains consciousness, to the player himself. But it has only been what we should regard as entirely normal and proper, right?