Saturday 3 October 2009

AFA ask Tévez and Pablo to sit out

There's an international break coming up and it could well cause us problems for Monday: the Argentine Football Association has asked City to leave out Carlos Tévez and Pablo Zabaleta for the trip to Villa Park on Monday. Argentina have two crucial World Cup qualifiers coming up: Peru at home next Saturday (10th), and Uruguay away the following Wednesday (14th). Tévez and Zabaleta are both in the squad and Maradona will want them 100% fit for the games.

I'd be surprised if Hughes goes along with this. As much as he does have the sympathy with international football one would expect of a former national boss, Monday night's match could well be a crucial marker in our season - the biggest test since Arsenal at home, in the sense that we were not really expected to get anything at Old Trafford.

1 comment:

Benji said...

Haha this is outrageous. To leave two key players out of a Premier League game - Tevez, our star signing, in particular! As if. It's one thing for a club to ask a country to rest players for a friendly - but something else altogether for a country to ask a club who pay the wages of these players! I mean, Tevez must be on 100+ grand a week, perhaps getting on for 150/200 for all we know these days!! Argentina are in their own mess, why should we help them out at the risk of dropping vital points ourselves?? I'm sure Hughes had a chuckle at this one!!