Tevez tears Wigan apart to boost City’s Euro hopes

IF they manage to get Champions League football, no-one at Eastlands will remember how much anxiety and nerves there were on the way but this was another horrible night for Roberto Mancini’s side before Carlos Tevez scored three times to bring some relief.

Victory, secured by two goals that came after Wigan’s Gary Caldwell was harshly sent off, moves City up to fifth in the table, two points behind Tottenham, who still have to travel to Eastlands.

He now has 21 goals in 19 appearances and City really do have to wonder where they would be without him.

High expectation and Manchester City have never been a particularly happy mix, particularly with Wigan looking so comfortable at the break and it made for a particularly uncomfortable opening period.

City had some joy when they used Shaun Wright-Phillips and Adam Johnson on the flanks but all too often, they were reduced to firing long balls up to Emmanuel Adebayor.

Wigan began strongly and started particularly well defensively, with Bramble pulling off a fine block from Emmanuel Adebayor after Carlos Tevez’s cross.

Wigan were finding it easy to contain the hosts and threatened themselves when Hugo Rodallega broke quickly and pulled back for Paul Scharner, whose shot flew wide from just outside the area.

But Tevez almost broke the deadlock after skipping past a weak challenge from Melchiot and clipping a looping shot that landed just the wrong side of the post.

The introduction of Craig Bellamy at the expense of Wright-Phillips did give City some impetus at the start of the second period and they even had the ball in the net when Adebayor followed up a Tevez shot that was only pushed back into trouble by Stojkovic.

But Wigan went close again when a long, straight free kick from Caldwell caused City problems, with the ball landing on the back of Pablo Zabaleta’s head and Rodallega steering the ball past Vincent Kompany only to drag his side wide.

But the key moment came 10 minutes after the restart when referee Stuart Attwell showed Caldwell a straight red card for a challenge on Tevez.

With both players going for the ball, it initially looked like Tevez had stamped with two feet before Caldwell went over the ball with one foot and then caught the Argentinian with the other.

Not that it made much difference for about 15 anxiety-ridden minutes before they finally made the breakthrough.

Stojkovic has never been anything other than a terrifying distraction for his defenders when he has played before and so he proved once again, racing out to Vieria’s clip through, only to stop and allow Tevez to knock past him and roll into the net with 20 minutes left.

He had little impact a couple of minutes later when Adam Johnson drove a cross to the far post that was flicked on and after Kompany flicked on, Tevez rolled in a second, once again brandishing his shin-pad in celebration.

With five minutes remaining, Tevz secured a comfortable victory, by finding the corner of the net with a placed shot after breaking past Maynor Figueroa.

MANCHESTER CITY: Given, Zabaleta, Toure, Kompany, Garrido (Onuoha 88), Wright-Phillips (Bellamy 46), Vieira, De Jong, Adam Johnson, Tevez (Sylvinho 88), Adebayor.

WIGAN ATHLETIC: Stojkovic, Melchiot, Caldwell, Bramble, Figueroa, McCarthy, Diame, Thomas (N’Zogbia 52), Scharner, Rodallega (Scotland 81), Moreno (Gohouri 81).

Referee: Stuart Attwell.