City envisage £38m Aguero as solution to the Tevez problem
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Your support makes all the difference.Manchester City will push on with their £38m bid to sign Sergio Aguero from Atletico Madrid despite the collapse of the sale of Carlos Tevez to Corinthians, and the club are hopeful that Aguero's arrival will make them less reliant on their captain.
Talks are planned in the next few days between City chief executive Garry Cook and his counterparts at Atletico over the signing of Aguero, 23. While City are dismayed – but not surprised – at Corinthians' failure to come up with the guarantees for the £44m fee for Tevez, they are determined not to be forced into a corner by Tevez again.
There is an acceptance at City that Tevez wielded a disproportionate degree of influence over his two seasons there because they have been so reliant on him for goals. They hope that the arrival of Aguero, who has been at Atletico for five years, will change that dynamic and reduce Tevez's power to make life difficult for the club, as he did with his transfer request in December.
City were not forewarned by Corinthians that they were to release a statement withdrawing from negotiations to sign Tevez as they did in the early hours of yesterday morning. By that time City had acquiesced to drop all the relatively minor requests to amend the deal, worth £40m with £4m add-ons, and were waiting only for a banker's guarantee.
City had agreed that Corinthians would not have to make any payment until next year and had waived any right to a sell-on fee. All they required was the standard guarantee that the club had the funds to buy the player. The longer that Corinthians president Andres Sanches withheld the guarantee, the more City suspected that the fee was beyond their means.
Tevez is on holiday and will have another two weeks off. The club have made it clear to the player and his adviser Kia Joorabchian that they would not be prepared to do a similar deal with a European club who would have to pay £50m to sign the player. In the meantime, Tevez will be told to prepare for the new season with City. The reality is that with such a high fee and wage demands of around £200,000 a week, Tevez is running short of options if he is to leave Manchester.
Harry Redknapp has said that Tottenham are interested in signing Emmanuel Adebayor, but only on loan. His wages of £150,000 a week are double that of Spurs' highest earners. City would be delighted to get rid of Adebayor, left behind for their current tour of America, but would rather a permanent deal than a loan. City have also sold their Brazilian striker Jo to Internacional in Brazil.
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