Sergio ‘sorry’ for bad choice
MANCHESTER CITY legend Sergio Aguero felt obliged to apologise for his failed Panenkastyle penalty which cost his club the chance to tie up the Premier League title at the Etihad last night.
The Argentine, who has scored 258 goals for the club in 10 years and is associated with City’s finest moment, when his last-minute goal won the most-dramatic title race ever in 2012, attempted to chip Chelsea goalkeeper Edouard Mendy just before half time to make it 2-0.
But, in what turned out to be rather embarrassing for him, he chose to simply lift the ball tamely into Mendy’s hands, which allowed Chelsea to come back and win the game 2-1 in the second half.
Even though city are highly likely to win the league this week, with rivals Manchester United having to win all three games hey play over the next seven days to keep the race alive, Aguero tweeted: ‘I would like to apologise to my team-mates, staff and supporters for missing the penalty. It was a bad decision and I take full responsibility.’
City still need one more win in their last three games to be sure of winning the title but only if United have a 100 per cent record.
City manager Pep Guardiola defended Aguero when asked if attempting a Panenka was a selfish decision. ‘He is selfish because he missed it,’ said Guardiola.
‘If he scored a goal, you would say how [much] a genius he is. That’s the reality. So always I say to the players in the penalties take one decision, panenka, right, left, short, whatever you want, but commit. He was committed, if he miss it, he miss it.
‘Everyone is disappointed but the first disappointment is him, you know that. He’s a sensible guy. We’re not going to talk about what Sergio has done, how he’s been for this club, for this team for all this period he has been here. He took the decision and that’s all.
‘Nobody expected it, but he take the decision it right, it’s OK. If he commits, do it, so he has done. He thought that it was the best way, the takers have the responsibility and he took the responsibility.’
Had Aguero scored the penalty, City would have taken a two-goal lead into the break, which may have been too much for Chelsea to try and recover from.
But Guardiola said: ‘We don’t know what would have happened [if he scored]. We cannot deny 2-0 at half-time would have been different. I’m not going to blame the reasons why. If you start to think about this action, the other one, the other one, you never end. We win for many reasons and we lose for many reasons and everyone makes an incredible contribution.’