Carlos Tevez's representative Kia Joorabchian has hit out at former Manchester United captain Gary Neville for claiming that his client "downed tools" in his final season at the club.
The Argentine striker formed a deadly front three with Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney in the 2007/08 season as Alex Ferguson's side won both the Premier League and Champions League.
But Dimitar Berbatov's arrival in the following summer saw Tevez's form drop at Old Trafford and he found the net just five times in the 2009 campaign before joining United's rivals Manchester City for £47million.
Neville claimed this week that Tevez showed a lack of application in the last six months of his time with United but Joorabchian insists that wasn't the case.
"I'm here because I feel that Gary said something that was absolutely wrong," the agent told Sky Sports' The Football Show. "I often let things go but I think that when you go after somebody and you’ve made a lot of wrong and incorrect statements, then by letting it go will not do the benefit to the public listening to fake information.
“Gary mentioned about Carlos down tooling and his professionalism and he also mentioned that there were problems in his second year about people talking in his ear. So generally I have three comments and three questions for Gary.
“In terms of the people who he claims were talking into his ear, I’d like to know who he thinks were talking into his ear and what he thinks they were saying in his ear because unless he was hacking them or taping him then it was impossible for him to know what they were apparently saying in his ear.
“And I’d like to know who those people are. Furthermore, I must apologise as I gave an incorrect stat in my previous interview, I said Gary played four times in that year, he actually played one time in Carlos’ first year because unfortunately Gary was injured.
“And he played ten minutes against Roma. When Gary made a comparison between year one and year two, Gary could not have known too much about year one because he played ten minutes that year, not four times as I incorrectly said.
“He was mostly on the treatment table and that’s the actual year he said good things about Carlos. And finally I think that Sir Alex Ferguson was one of the greatest managers of my time and irrespective of what side of the hairdryer you were on, you had nothing but respect for the man.
“The one thing that I think I learnt in my time about Sir Alex was that he had his finger to the pulse all the time and he was a strong coach, he knew what his players were doing in the training round, off the training ground, at home, on a week day.
“And by Gary making those comments about the second year he’s somewhat questioning whether Sir Alex had his finger to the pulse because Sir Alex picked Carlos 51 times during that season of 2008/09, 51 times. He picked Rooney 49 times, Berbatov 44 times and Gary himself only played 29 in that season.
“In those moments Carlos played 51 games, picked by Sir Alex, 15 goals, seven assists. Berbatov 14 goals, 11 assists and Rooney 20 goals and 13 assists. Sir Alex would not have picked someone 51 times a season if they were down tooling or being unprofessional unless Gary thinks Sir Alex took his eye off the ball.”
Carlos Tevez, Manchester United
But Neville stands by his claim that Tevez made less effort in the second-half of his last campaign with United:
"Kia, you'll know that Carlos definitely wasn't the same player in the last four, five months of the season. I don't know what stats you're referring to there but I looked at the Premier League and Champions League stats of Carlos over the two seasons.
"I said a few days ago that Carlos was among the best front three that I've ever seen in the Premier League. In the last six months he only played 18 times in the Premier League, which is the same as the first six months in its entirety and he only scored five goals in his second season in the Premier League.
"Carlos' performances in the second year dipped and the same in the Champions League; he scored a lot fewer goals. There were definitely other complications Carlos had in terms of the club not triggering his option - you've admitted that - and I saw Carlos in the last five months at the club. I was watching the boy.
"Carlos was a warrior on the football pitch. In the first 12 months at Man Utd, I've never seen anything more brilliant than him with Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo. But in the last four months, the drop in his manner and performances - maybe because he wasn't being taken on by the club - was alarming.
"At that time there was no problem third-party ownership but I felt there was so much distraction, noise around the third-party ownership and how much they might make, these were things that were in Carlos' ear all the time. And a lot of the appearance numbers you gave were as substitutes; he was definitely a different person in those last few months at the club. 'Downed tools' might be a bit crass but Carlos was distracted, different and nowhere near the level he'd been at in those last months. You must accept that."
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