I read quite a lot of stuff on the internet, mostly about football, mostly about Manchester United. Most of it is pure fiction and some of it is outright lies and misrepresentation.

There were headlines a couple of weeks ago that  “Gary Neville agrees with Fergie – Tevez not worth £25 Million.”

This was what Gary Neville had said in his Sunday column which appears in the Times of Malta.

At the time, I just took it as the truth and that Neville was up to his old winding up opponents trick. In short, I trusted what the English press had written (always a mistake) and didn’t check it out for myself.

Today, I decided to have a search around the net to see if I could actually find the offending article.

I did, and here’s what it says:-

Was it a mistake to let Carlos Tevez leave Manchester United and do you think United should buy a striker in this transfer window? John Refalo, Attard

The manager over the years has made many decisions with regard to players coming and going, and he has almost always been proved correct.

Over a period of 20 years he may have got one or two wrong, and I think he has admitted that himself, but he knows exactly what he’s doing and he understands when a player’s time is up.

I can’t disagree with his decision on Tevez. He was a good player for us, but if the financial demands are too big then that’s just the way it goes. Other good players have left this club in the past; it’s not the first time it’s happened.

Firstly, notice that it is written in response to a question from a reader. This answers Tevez’ question “Why the hell is that idiot talking about me?”

Then he doesn’t specifically say that he agreed with Fergie’s decision to let Tevez go, only that he couldn’t disagree either.

It is quite likely that Neville is not in full knowledge of the facts surrounding just how much Tevez and his pimp agent were asking for but Neville is simply guessing that their demands were too high and Fergie was either unwilling (or unable) to meet them.

Neville then goes on to compliment his former team-mate, “he was a good player for us”.

I know Tevez’ English isn’t too good but if there’s one thing he needs to know more than anything in England it is to never trust the Press and in particular, don’t believe that the headlines are in anyway indicative of the content of the story.

Something I need to remind myself of from time to time, it seems.