'Carlos Tevez is not the first player to believe his own publicity but he might be the only man alive who thinks he, too, possesses the hindsight that allowed Lord Griffiths to pronounce on football matters not as they were but as they might have been had they not been as they were.
'Griffiths, as students of the supernatural will recall, was the chairman of an independent Premier League tribunal which was able to peer into the past and declare with certainty that West Ham, and not Sheffield United, would have be relegated at the end of the 2006-07 season had not the Argentinian been allowed to play for the Hammers.
'We won't revisit that subject, you will be relieved to hear, especially not now that Tevez has chosen this moment to make his debut contribution to what I believe literary types like to describe as counter-factual history, arguing that the outcome of the European Cup final between Barcelona and Manchester United might have been different had Sir Alex Ferguson used another starting 11, one featuring, well, I think we can all guess.
"You cannot argue with Alex Ferguson," Tevez said. "He is like the president of England. It is impossible. You always lose. But he made a mistake to leave me on the bench. That was the only final the team had lost since I had been at Manchester United."
Tevez's notion of a republican England is certainly appealing (albeit with a different president) but the suggestion he would have altered the course of the European Cup final stretches credulity tighter than a Lycra bandana round the circumference of Cristiano Ronaldo's ego. The Argentinian did, after all, come on at half-time in Rome to no noticeable effect, although I seem to remember that Barcelona were even more dominant after the interval than before.
'It was hardly Tevez's fault that Xavi and Iniesta ran the show almost from the start, but in accepting his limited culpability for United's defeat it is also worth asking, how on earth would his presence on the pitch from the first minute have halted Barça's midfield pair? Those inclined to debate Ferguson's team selection and tactics in perpetuity are welcome to do so, but most sensible people would choose to accept the result as fair, move on and interpret Tevez's latest criticisms of his now former manager as the bitter words of a player still playing to an Old Trafford audience he has left behind. Sour grapes, some might call it.
'So he didn't play from the start in Rome, or start in as many league matches as he would have liked. Big deal. Perhaps if he had scored more frequently when he did play, things might have been different.'