Dzeko header gives City room at the top Manchester City appeared to be inching closer to ending the Carlos Tevez transfer saga last night, with Internazionale - the clear front-runners in the pursuit of him - only £4m short of the £25m asking price which may persuade the club to let him go. A £20.7m bid for Tevez, tabled by Internazionale late on Thursday, failed to meet the club's valuation for a player who has been absent from Manchester since he took a flight to Argentina in late October. City remain determined that Tevez will not hold them to ransom by, in effect, removing his services, though the desire to put an end to the matter means the club are likely to accept a bid of around €30m (£24.8m) That is a 38 per cent drop on the £40m the club said they would demand, when they last publicly commented on the player, having found him guilty of gross misconduct and fined him £792,000 on 25 October. Tevez's departure will not strengthen manager Roberto Mancini's hand in his pursuit of a new player this month, since Sergio Aguero was seen as the replacement when purchased for £38m last summer in the expectation his compatriot would leave. Yet City know Tevez's value will only diminish as his period out of football lengthens. City insisted in October that their Abu Dhabi owners considered it a point of principle that the 27-year-old should not be allowed to leave at a cut-price rate for reasons of expediency. But the landscape has changed and the notion of continuing to pay the player £198,000-a-week to remain 7,000 miles away highly unappealing. City require all the income they can generate, to turn the 2010-11 record £197m loss declared in October into a figure at least approaching Uefa's required €45m (£39m) loss permissible in total from this season until the governing body's financial fair play rules come into effect in 2014. If their total loss greatly exceeds that, they could face sanctions including possible disqualification from European competition in 2014-15. With no counter-bid expected to come in from Milan this week, Inter are now emerging as the comfortable favourites for Tevez's services. Though Milan have covered far more ground in their attempt to line up a deal - personal terms have been agreed while contact between Inter and Tevez's representative Kia Joorabchian has not moved beyond an initial conversation - there are doubts whether Milan have €30m to meet City's demands. They anticipated selling Alexandre Pato to finance a Tevez deal and since that deal fell through have been dependent on City agreeing to a loan deal, which Mancini's club will not. Inter's manager, Claudio Ranieri, has cast some doubts as to his desire for Tevez. "We've found balance, what can this lad give us if he isn't playing and what will he take away," he said. We're playing well and we've rediscovered that vital self-belief. It was said the team was finished and the players were washed up but they're showing they still have a lot to say and do. But Ranieri did say, "If he joins he'll be very welcome." Though PSG have been far more positive about the idea of signing Tevez, the Argentine has no desire to play for the French side.