Last season’s much-publicised incident at Bayern Munich is now just a distant memory as Tevez winds up to finish this campaign on a high after scoring in each of his last three games.
When Tevez plays well, it’s almost nailed on City will win and the Argentine is likely to spearhead the Blues’ attack again this weekend against Barnsley after another match-winning performance against Aston Villa on Monday evening.
“It was so difficult for Carlos, for Roberto Mancini and for the club,” said Zabaleta. “From something very small, it grew so big. It’s done now, though and what happened won’t happen again.
“After that night, everything went crazy and it was so difficult for everyone. Everybody makes mistakes and the positive thing is Carlos came back again and his commitment for the club and team has been 100%, so full credit to him for that.
“He is back to his best and he scored a fantastic goal against Chelsea and I think he’s been great all season. His work-rate is fantastic. When Mario was here we had four top strikers and it was difficult for them to play every game. But now we have Edin, Sergio, Carlos and they’re all doing well and playing more games.”
The Argentina trio of Tevez, Aguero and Zabaleta are without doubt three of the most popular players at the club, showing passion, determination and desire in bucket-loads every time they play.
Their understanding on the pitch is as good as their friendship off it, with the three amigos firmly focused on bringing some silverware back to the Etihad Stadium again this year.
“It helps that we are close, I’ve known them for a long time,” said Zaba. “We played together at Under-20s level and for the national team. They are two fantastic players and I’m really enjoying my time with them in Manchester.
“As for this season, it goes without saying that we wanted to have a closer gap than 12 points. We have the FA Cup to go for as well, but obviously, when you look at the team you expect us to do better.
“We’ve dropped too many points this season in games that we know we had to win if we want to win the title. So we need to learn from our mistakes but we are still learning and need to just carry on. Good teams need to keep winning, it is still 10 games to the end so we’ll see.”
