Tevez is a legend, but he didn’t keep us up

By: Ted | October 1st, 2008

This article intended to address not just current compensation case, but also the general assumption that Tevez kept us up singlehandedly. Don’t get me wrong, Apache is an absolute legend, there’s no player I would rather see in Claret and Blue. However, it undermines West Ham, and all the other important players involved to say he saved us on his own, and it’s just plain untrue. Therefore, attached is an interesting piece I read that sums up why the decision, based principally on the fact that Tevez was worth at least three points, is ludicrous not only as an attempted serious football judgement, that a player’s worth can be measured in points, but also that in this specific case is a ridiculous overstatement of his efforts. His contribution was nothing compared to say that ballet dancer Ronaldo’s 100-odd goals for Manure last season. So, without further ado, here is the jist of the article:

* Four of West Ham’s seven wins at the end of the 2006-07 season were by a one-goal margin. Of those, Bobby Zamora scored the winning goal in three, while Carlos Tevez grabbed the decider in just one. Of course, that game was the 1-0 win at Old Trafford on the final day.

* The Daily Telegraph’s football correspondent Henry Winter was asked by the tribunal to discuss Tevez’s impact and he made the point that West Ham wouldn’t have scored in that game were it not for Tevez. However, if the game finished goalless, West

Ham would still have finished 16th.

* Sheffield United played West Ham during West Ham’s run of seven wins from nine games and despite Carlos Tevez playing every second of the game, the Blades still won the match 3-0. Should West Ham be given these three points back?

* With nine games remaining in the season, Sheffield United led West Ham by eleven points, despite the fact Carlos Tevez was at the club for 26 of the 29 games played, over which period the Blades picked up fourteen more points than West Ham.

* The fact Sheffield United blew an eleven point lead over the final nine games, a period that even included a 3-0 victory over the Hammers, must surely be blamed on themselves.

And revealingly:

West Ham without Tevez:
P12 W4 D3 L5 Points per game: 1.25

West Ham with Tevez:
P26 W8 D2 L16 Points per game: 1