SOCCER:MANCHESTER CITY will press ahead with their attempt to sign Sergio Aguero despite the breakdown of Carlos Tevez's proposed move to Corinthians and the possibility that a player who has made it clear he cannot tolerate the idea of returning to England may be left with no choice because nobody else wants to buy him.

While City are optimistic of agreeing a €43 million deal to extract Aguero from Atletico Madrid, Tevez is now waiting to hear when City expect him to return for pre-season training. He has been given a fortnight off to recover from the Copa America but may be granted more time, meaning he will not be involved in the Community Shield against Manchester United on August 7th.

Roberto Mancini must choose whether to replace him as captain with Vincent Kompany or continue to coddle his leading scorer.

Kompany was voted the club’s player of the year last season and Tevez’s popularity within Eastlands has diminished to the point that three senior players approached Mancini in the spring to voice their objections to the Argentinian staying in the role were he still to be at the club next season.

Corinthians announced yesterday the deal for Tevez had become “impossible” and it is a measure of the politics behind the scenes that there are people at City who are sceptical about whether a deal was ever likely. The feeling is it may have been an elaborate PR exercise or an attempt by agents to accelerate interest from other clubs. If so, it appears to have failed on all counts.

City had made considerable allowances to help Corinthians facilitate a deal that always looked well out of their price range. The Sao Paulo club have never spent even €11 million on a player but said they could more than double the Brazilian transfer record, as well as offering Tevez a huge salary, because of sponsorship money and other funding.

City agreed, dropping their asking price from €57 million to €45 million, with €4.5 million in potential add-ons. They tried to make the deal easier for Corinthians by agreeing to stagger the payments over four years and, when it became apparent the Brazilians could not even afford an immediate €5.6 million instalment, they accepted a counter proposal to delay it until February 28th, with a second payment of the same amount on June 28th.

Where City would not budge was their insistence that Corinthians provided bank assurances. They asked for this four times and the response has left them to consider this was, in effect, the moment they called Corinthians’ bluff.

Tevez’s only hope of a move appears to rely on a money-plus-player swap deal, maybe with Wesley Sneijder of Internazionale. Otherwise, City are not certain whether there are any clubs with the finances and desire to come in for him before the end of the August transfer window.

They are encouraged by the fact that, whatever his issues, Tevez’s difficulties rarely seem to affect what he contributes on the pitch.