Regrets? Not me, says City slicker Tevez
The Blues striker added that helping Roberto Mancini’s men get the better of his former team-mates in the derby at Eastlands tonight would be “special”.
Tevez has been a massive hit, scoring 36 goals for City since his controversial cross-town move to the megabucks Blues last year.
And even though they missed out on Champions League football this season, the Argentina front man believes he made the right decision to quit Old Trafford.
“I made the change and so far I’m not sorry,” he said. “As players we are professionals and we have to make decisions that are right for us.
“But I also realise many people may not have understood my decision. All I can do is concentrate on my game and play well for City. And at the minute it is going well for me.”
Tevez expects a tough challenge against a fired-up United, who are three points ahead of the Blues, and knows from his days at Old Trafford just how hard it will be to get the better of United defender Rio Ferdinand.
“Any battle against the Manchester United defence is never easy,” he said.
“But at City we’re not obsessed by United. Our challenge is just to improve on what we did last year and perhaps by doing that we can overtake our neighbours.
“That’s our aim, that’s the road we are on. We are in the top three and I think we are better than last season, we are improving all the time.
“But we have to continue to fight over an entire season before we can gauge whether we are good enough to win the title. I think we can, but we have to continue winning. I think the title race is still wide open.”
However while Tevez believes his side can win the title, Mancini, believes City are scrapping with United for second place in the Premier League behind defending champions Chelsea.
Mancini said: “I think Chelsea will win the Premier League. But all the other sides near them can try because the season is long and difficult.
“Our target must be the Champions League. It is important we are near Chelsea and Manchester United in January and February.
“I think we have a chance. We must take it game to game. For the moment we must only think of United.”
City ended a run of three straight defeats against West Brom at the weekend and according to Mancini that win has increased the mood of confidence in the camp ahead of the visit of Alex Ferguson’s men.
He said: “A victory before you play United is important for the players and for all of us. They know now we are a strong team. The situation has changed.
“We have respect for them, we have respect for Fergie because he is the top manager in the world. But we are getting better. It will be a good game.’’
Ferguson is still seething over City’s award-winning ‘Welcome to Manchester’ Carlos Tevez poster and suggested most of their supporters would prefer to win something before the Blues began their mickey-taking.
“I don’t think they can be proud of it,” Ferguson said.
“I said it was stupid at the time. They probably think that now. I don’t see how they thought it would get more points off us when it came to playing on a football pitch.
“Maybe it was worthwhile for some of the supporters but I think a lot of them were embarrassed. They would rather see that trophy being paraded through the city before they start screaming from the rooftops.”
On City’s aspirations to usurp United, Ferguson said: “It is difficult to say whether it is inevitable they are eventually going to win the league.
“Obviously, in many people’s eyes, having the money is a lot better than not but this is still a difficult league to win. City recognise that themselves.”
Ferguson cannot hope to compete financially, yet still seems able to find hidden treasures, such as Javier Hernandez, who has enjoyed an excellent first couple of months following his summer arrival from Mexico.
Hernandez seems certain to gain his first Manchester derby experience given the virus that has whipped through the United squad, leading Ferguson to admit he will have to take a body count before he can name his team.
Paul Scholes, Michael Carrick, Dimitar Berbatov, Patrice Evra and Nemanja Vidic are just five of the senior players who have been struggling, while Ryan Giggs and Darron Gibson are amongst those definitely ruled out.
But Ferguson said United have done well to battle their injury woes.
“I listened to Match of the Day on Saturday and they said we were hopeless,” Ferguson said. “But we had five world-class players out of the team and three lads up front who had only 30 games between them. We still won.”
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