Back in favour and back in form: How Sergio Aguero proved Pep Guardiola wrong
The forward's goalscoring exploits against Huddersfield at the weekend have given lie to the strange yet persistent idea that he is a fading force
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Your support makes all the difference.“When my father came, he put those there,” Sergio Aguero says in the second episode of the Manchester City documentary series, pointing to a collection of signed balls sat on a mantelpiece above his television set. “When you score three or four goals, you receive the match ball.”
Three, four, even five inside 20 minutes, like in one extraordinary performance against Newcastle United three years ago. Who’s keeping count, anyway? Few strikers speak so casually when thinking back to their greatest scoring hauls, but then few have as many hauls to remember as Aguero.
After Sunday’s 6-1 evisceration of Huddersfield Town, he received another ball to add to the collection. His thirteenth hat-trick in City colours – the ninth of his Premier League career – was not his finest but it was brutally and typically effective, giving lie to the strange yet persistent idea that he is a fading force.
Granted, there was a point when that idea had some credence. If you had said during Pep Guardiola’s first season at the Etihad that Aguero would start the opening three fixtures of the Catalan’s third, few would have believed you. Thirty-three goals in 45 outings seems a healthy return, in retrospect, but this was about more than Aguero’s scoring.
“Besides my responsibilities as a striker, [Guardiola] wanted to get me involved as the first defender of the team,” Aguero said in May, during an interview in his native Argentina. He had made his manager “angry” during that first year, he admitted, by not offering the consistent pressing from the front that Guardiola’s style demands.
This much was clear when the now-forgotten Nolito started ahead of Aguero for City’s 4-0 defeat to Barcelona at the Nou Camp in October 2016. The arrival of Gabriel Jesus a few months later brought about Aguero’s City nadir. After a Jesus brace beat Swansea City, Aguero pointedly responded to questions on his future by saying: “We will see what the club wants to do with me.”
A ruthless streak runs through Guardiola’s managerial career – from the sale of Ronaldinho in his first job, to the exile of Joe Hart in his current one – but what Aguero may or may not have known at the time was that his manager had a reason to persevere with him. Aguero is the favourite player of Guardiola’s son, Marius, so the City manager promised to himself he would persist with the Argentine. He wanted it to work.
The feeling at City mid-way through last season was that Aguero had made significant progress. At 29-years-old, he had successfully adapted his game to Guardiola’s demands – applying pressure to the opposition defence, seeking to win the ball back within 15 seconds of it being lost – and the sense then was that Aguero was now approaching the peak of his powers. By the end of campaign, the numbers proved that analysis correct.
Though a serious knee injury cut his season short in April, Aguero’s 21 goals in 25 league outings represented the best scoring rate of his Etihad career to date. His rate of scoring in all competitions last season is only bettered by his 2013-14 campaign, which is generously helped by a FA Cup fourth round hat-trick against a second-tier Watford.
Could this coming season be better still? It should be, injury and Guardiola’s rotation policy permitting. Aguero seems to be the man in possession of first-choice striker status at City for the moment. Jesus has struggled for true consistency. Both started against Huddersfield but Guardiola suggested that this was a one-off solution to combat a specific opponent rather than a sign of things to come.
One source of motivation for Aguero will be that he has greatness within his reach. Sunday’s hat-trick took his total number of Premier League goals up to 146. He is now joint-10th on the list of top scorers since 1992 – level with Teddy Sheringham, yet with a superior goals-per-game ratio.
More significantly, a total of 146 goals is two more than Robin van Persie managed during his time in this country. The Huddersfield haul means that only one non-English player sits ahead of Aguero in the rankings: Thierry Henry, who scored 175 times over two spells at Arsenal.
Aguero has two years remaining on his current City contract, after which he is expected to return to his boyhood club Independiente. Two seasons to score 30 goals and become the highest-scoring import in Premier League history? At his current rate, it is more than just possible. Aguero’s father may need to find more room on that mantelpiece.
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