CARLOS TEVEZ’S two-year spell with Manchester United came to a final and acrimonious end yesterday with the club announcing that he would be leaving even though they were prepared to pay the £25.5m that was demanded as a transfer fee. The announcement came as his agent, Kia Joorabchian, insisted that Tevez’s decision to leave was the club’s fault.

Manchester City are now the favourites to sign Tevez, though Chelsea are also believed to be interested. United, meanwhile, have lost a second member of their all-star forward line, after the agreement to sell Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid earlier this month for a world record fee of £80m.

Tevez has been hugely popular with United fans but his future had been the subject of season-long speculation. United revealed yesterday that they had offered Tevez a five-year contract that would have made him one of their most highly paid players but Joorabchian suggested it was all too little, too late.

Tevez wanted time to consider the offer, Joorabchian said, but when the club insisted on an immediate answer Tevez decided to walk away. “If it was, let’s say, Wayne Rooney’s contract finishing six months before, or Cristiano Ronaldo’s contract, would they have offered a better deal to them at that time or would they have tried to secure their services a bit sooner? He has that little bit of a feeling that maybe he wasn’t the most wanted person at United.

“United made a fantastic contribution to try to secure him with a last-ditch offer but it was a little bit too late and there wasn’t enough time for Carlos to think about it. Over two years there was a lot of talk about signing him but we never actually got to the point of receiving any offers. The United offer came about 10 days ago. It was the loan price of £9m plus the final option price of £25.5m. They made him a good contract but Carlos needed time.”

As to where Tevez would play next season, Joorabchian ruled out a move to Liverpool “out of respect” for the United fans and suggested his choice was likely to be between Manchester City and Chelsea. “City have obviously been in contact with us,” he said. “I’ve spoken to [City executive chairman] Garry [Cook] and to [manager] Mark [Hughes] on several occasions. We haven’t talked to them about a contract and we haven’t talked to Chelsea either about that because we’ve respected the fact that Carlos is a United player.”

Tevez’s economic rights are owned by a consortium headed by Joorabchian. He joined United two years ago on loan, having initially made an impact in English football by helping West Ham avoid relegation.

Tevez’s decision to walk away from Old Trafford comes when Liverpool are looking increasingly likely to lose a number of their coveted foreign players. Javier Mascherano, Tevez’s fellow Argentinian, is reportedly attracting the attention of both Barcelona and Real Madrid while fellow midfielder Xabi Alonso is another Real target and has talked of how the weakness of sterling against the euro makes a move back to Spain much more attractive.