PSG to make £25m bid for Tevez the reluctant recruit

Carlos Tevez is likely to be sold for around £25m (Getty Images)

Carlos Tevez may be forced to swap one uncherished job for another, with Paris St-Germain expected to table a bid this week which would match Manchester City's likely £25m asking price.

Rumours in Paris yesterday that Tevez was due to fly in today and that a deal between PSG and City had been done are wide of the mark. But PSG have made the pursuit of a striker their top priority since Alexandre Pato's last-minute decision to stay at Milan scuppered a £34m bid, and the club's Qatari owners certainly have money available to meet City's demands.

Tevez is unlikely to fancy a move to the French capital, though. The Argentine wants to be at a club which would place him among fellow A-listers, namely Internazionale or Milan.

There are still two weeks for City to conclude a deal with either of those sides, Juventus or Real Madrid. Inter were only £4m away when they bid £21m last week but there are mixed messages from Inter's manager, Claudio Ranieri, who asked: "What can this lad give us if he isn't playing and what will he take away?"

Nor might another Serie A side return to the table, as Milan will hardly want to make a £25m investment now that their attempts to sell Pato have fallen through.

PSG's new manager, Carlo Ancelotti, was, by contrast, full of praise for Tevez at the weekend and it is expected that the contact with City may come directly from him. The French side are severely short of top-class strikers.

Tevez is not contemplating anything beyond the prospect of a move to Italy, though City are in no doubt that they will accept the best bid which meets their demands after a two-month period in which they have been prepared to pay the 27-year-old his £198,000-a-week wage while he has been on unauthorised leave in Argentina.