LONDON: Carlos Tevez is still willing to play for Manchester City despite handing in a transfer request, his agent said Wednesday. Kia Joorabchian said Tevez wanted to leave Eastlands as he felt the club had broken promises not related to money, denying the move was simply a tactic to secure a better contract with Premier League high-flyers City. “Carlos has never said he is not going to play so those rumors are rubbish, Joorabchian told the Daily Telegraph. “He will play if picked and 100 percent do his best. He feels that is important every time he puts on the shirt.” Tevez joined City in 2009 after two years across town at Manchester United. The 26-year-old Argentina striker scored 29 goals in his first City season and has 10 in 18 appearances this term, having been appointed captain by manager Roberto Mancini before the season started. But now Tevez wants to leave City just 17 months into a five-year contract, amid reports he misses his two daughters, who live in Argentina. Even though the club is third in the league table, just two points behind leader United, Joorabchian said the club's lack of progress had left Tevez feeling frustrated. Joorabchian said Tevez's feelings dated back to last season, when City was pipped to the final Champions League place on offer to English clubs by Tottenham Hotspur. “Carlos is a winner, everywhere he has been in his life he has been a winner. He decided he would sign for the club, play one year outside of the Champions League and hopefully take this club into the next phase. “When he joined City he made a commitment that this was what he wanted to do. At the end of last season, Carlos was bitterly disappointed because they didn't qualify for the Champions League.”Joorabchian, blamed by City for encouraging Tevez to leave, insisted he'd done all he could to make sure his client stayed at Eastlands. “In the summer he wanted to leave,” Joorabchian said. “I think I managed to successfully convince Carlos to speak to the City chairman (Khaldoon Al-Mubarak). “Through September, Carlos again began to get disillusioned because his viewpoint was it was not happening,” he said. “His view was that they had agreed and spoken, promises were made to him (but) there were issues not being resolved. “Carlos wanted to leave, I went to speak to them and they said there would be a new contract, new clauses in the contract etc. “They sent the proposal, we countered one time and then we said: ‘You know what, Carlos doesn't want it; thank you very much, no.'” Tevez, suspended when news of his transfer request became public last weekend, is set to miss the Europa League match at Juventus Thursday, but the fixture is a ‘dead' match as City has already reached the knockout phase of the tournament and Juve has been eliminated. – Agence France
