He’s a City icon, but will Aguero stay?
PERHAPS the most impressive aspect of Sergio Aguero’s relentless pursuit of Manchester City’s goalscoring record is that it follows the first difficult spell of his career at the Etihad.
Aguero has been a huge success ever since he joined City from Atletico Madrid for £38million in the summer of 2011, and his recordbreaking 178th goal for the club in Naples on Wednesday night merely underlines that fact.
Yet, for a good while after Pep Guardiola’s arrival last year, speculation surrounded his future.
Guardiola had to state repeatedly that Aguero was staying following the signing of Gabriel Jesus and talk of a bid for Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez.
But Sportsmail’s exclusive story of Guardiola meeting Aguero’s agent at a Manchester restaurant in January and comments from the player himself casting doubt over his future suggested all was not well. It is to the credit of all that the issue has been forgotten as City soar.
The Argentine’s excellent strike in the 4-2 win over Napoli was his ninth goal in 11 games this season — as well as being the one that took him past Eric Brook’s 78-year-old record.
No sooner had Aguero put one statistic to bed by breaking the record, however, than he was confronted with another as he was asked about the length of his contract. ‘I don’t know,’ he said with a smile. ‘I don’t remember — 2019, I think. I have to check again.’
In fact, it runs until June 30, 2020. City sources have maintained that Aguero signed a 12-month contract extension some time ago.
Strangely, very little has been made of it considering the player’s iconic status at the Etihad.
Why? It has been suggested that Aguero has pledged to finish his career at home with Independiente and does not want to cause unnecessary trouble in Argentina by trumpeting the fact his return may be put back by a year.