Sterling to follow in Kun’s footsteps
Circumstance may have gifted striker a chance to prove his worth to Guardiola
IT looked like an innocuous moment in a game of little consequence but it defined so much of what has followed for City.
In June last year, Pep Guardiola’s team were on their way to a routine 5-0 win over Burnley in the early days of Project Restart. The Premier League title was effectively Liverpool’s already, but racking up the goals was a decent enough way to spend your time.
It was 2-0 when Phil Foden, who opened the scoring, cut the ball back to Sergio Aguero. City’s all-time top scorer got there fractionally before Ben Mee’s challenge and it was a penalty after a VAR check.
Riyad Mahrez dispatched the spot-kick because Aguero hobbled out of the action. Over the 12 months that remained on his contract, the Argentina striker would never truly regain full fitness or top form.
Effectively, the challenge – in which, it should be said, Mee was utterly blameless – ended one of the greatest-ever City careers.
“Last last year when we reached the [Champions League] final, I had a knee problem, Covid and different injuries,”
Aguero told El Pais this week, succinctly outlining a year of relentless personal frustration.
And 16 months on it feels incredible to say Aguero – all of his goals, influence and brilliance – has not been replaced.
Pep Guardiola had plenty of success using a false nine last season and the tactic again worked to fine effect in the trips to Chelsea and Liverpool before the international break.
In terms of operating with a traditional number nine, the cupboard is pretty bare.
Ferran Torres suffered a broken metatarsal while playing for Spain and joins youth team standout Liam Delap on the sidelines. Gabriel Jesus has been reinvented as a rightwinger having failed to live up to his initial billing as Aguero’s heir. Which brings us to Raheem Sterling – like Aguero a leading light of the Guardiola era but a man with two goals in his past 26 City appearances and swirling speculation over his future.
“He has all the skills to play in any of the three positions up front. He is so dynamic, he has the sense to arrive in the box. Of course he scores goals, sometimes it’s the confidence,” Guardiola said of Sterling during a pre-match briefing dominated by the England star.
The 26-year-old’s appearance at the FT Business of Sport US summit this week, in which he repeated his desire to play abroad at some point in his career and said he would be open to a move away from City if it meant more game time, has again stoked intrigue over the state of his and Guardiola’s personal relationship.
In this particular respect, maybe he has replaced Aguero. After being told to tailor his game to the required highpressing style, the relationship between the striker and Guardiola felt tense during their first 18 months together and the awkwardness of last season seemed to pick at old wounds.
“I never had problems with Guardiola. I never argued with him,” Aguero said this week.
“The last three years have been fantastic. I’ve nothing to say. It does not matter to him if he has to leave out of the team [a player] that had scored three goals in the last games. “The name of the player does not matter. Unless it’s Messi. I always accepted when I had to play and when not.”
Aguero also identified a point in his City career that feels particularly relevant to Sterling in the context of Torres’ injury perhaps granting him the unexpected chance of a prolonged run at centre-forward. Jesus’ arrival to much fanfare mid-season in 2016/17 and the teenager’s irresistible early form briefly saw Aguero confined to the bench. “Gabriel Jesus, as soon as he landed in Manchester, began to play as a starter. I said nothing. I had to keep working,” Kun explained.
“I do not forget, Gabriel Jesus was injured in a match against Bournemouth. There were no strikers and I had to play. In those three months, I scored 20 goals. I gave Pep the confidence he needed.” Just as he did during his recordbreaking City career, Aguero has provided the clear template for goalscoring success. Now it is over to Sterling to see if he can follow his old colleague’s lead and grasp an unexpected chance to make himself indispensable once again.
It does not matter to him if he has to leave out a player. The name of the player doesn’t matter
Aguero on Pep