Roberto Mancini has said that Carlos Tevez is still an important part of Manchester City, despite being benched for Saturday’s 2-0 victory over Everton.

Tevez was the subject of one of the summer’s longest running transfer sagas, and a deal with Brazilian club Corinthians fell through at the last minute, leaving the striker a Manchester City player.

Since then, the Argentinian has struggled to find a place in Mancini’s starting eleven, but could feature in tomorrow’s (Tuesday) Champions League clash with Bayern Munich.

"He has a chance of starting," Mancini confirmed. "He's still an important player for us.

"In previous years he's scored 20 goals, this year he has started only twice.

"But now there are a lot of games and he'll get his chance. I hope we can keep him focused. We have four strikers and it's impossible that we can play with them all."

Tevez is an option for the Bayern match as striking colleague Mario Balotelli is still serving a four-match ban for his dismissal in a Europa League clash with Dynamo Kiev in March.