Tevez set to return to training

Condemnation of the 27-year-old's refusal to play against Bayern Munich on Tuesday night has mounted throughout the day. Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp was amongst the most vocal critics of a player who was a hero at his old club West Ham.

For Tevez, the turmoil is nothing new and being turned away from a local golf course as it was fully booked merely added to the sense of chaos in a life for which the football pitch has tended to be an oasis. However, City have taken advantage of a planned day off for their first-team squad to give the whole furore some breathing space.

The gap has not been used to try and change manager Roberto Mancini's mind about Tevez having no future.

Instead, the club are ensuring any action they take will not be the subject of appeals by Tevez, as prima-face as the evidence appears to be. Whilst Tevez waits, chairman Khaldoon al-Mubarak will have the final say.

Most likely is a January sale, although that would leave Tevez hanging around for another three months, bringing with it huge potential for disruption.

However, given the vast Abu Dhabi wealth bankrolling the entire City operation, it cannot entirely be discounted the man who skippered the Blues to their FA Cup triumph in May, the club's first silverware since 1976, will have his contract cancelled, or he will be left to fester until the end of his deal in 2014. Compromise is not on the agenda.

The claims Tevez made in his own statement on his conduct on Wednesday morning - that there had been a misunderstanding - have been ridiculed by senior City staff, as has the notion the South American's failure to start more than two games for the Blues amounts to some kind of victimisation on Mancini's part.

A source known to the Press Association, who knows both parties well - and likes Tevez as an individual - does not believe Mancini would engage in such conduct, especially over a player that, prior to Tuesday night's events he had indulged to such a huge extent and still felt had a positive contribution to make.

It does seem the combined 15 goals so far contributed to City's season by Edin Dzeko and Sergio Aguero amounts to a fairly heavy counterbalance to Tevez's inclusion.

Source: PA

Source: PA