DEADLY AGUERO IS HAT IT AGAIN
Super Sergio shrugs off early miss in City demolition job
SERGIO AGUERO went from zero to hero as Manchester City cruised back to the summit.
The Argentine ace missed an absolute sitter early on before recovering his poise to score his second hat-trick in a week.
And he helped Pep Guardiola’s men hit the Blues for six to leave Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri humiliated and clinging to his job.
Raheem Sterling (two) and Ilkay Gundogan joined in the fun with goals of their own as the thumping win helped the champions move above Liverpool again on goal difference.
The game of musical chairs shows no signs of stopping – and who will be sitting on the throne come the end of this thrilling season remains to be seen.
But Aguero was king for the day after the South American equalled Alan Shearer’s record of 11 hat-tricks in the Premier League.
There were no excuses for sorry Sarri, although he might need to think of some fast if he bumps into Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich at the training ground this week.
The ruthless Russian doesn’t suffer fools – which is what the Italian and his flops were made to look like yesterday.
Chelsea have now lost all four games on their travels in 2019, failing to score a single goal and conceding 13.
Their travel sickness is killing their hopes of Champions League qualification.
These two will clash for a fourth time this season in the Carabao Cup final at the end of the month – and it won’t be something anyone connected to the London club will look forward to. There was simply nowhere for them to hide at the Etihad – where the defending champions have now scored a mind-boggling 33 goals in their last five games in all competitions.
At least Sarri had the firepower of Gonzalo Higuain to call on. Or so he thought.
The on-loan Juventus hitman was his side’s best player by a country mile, but all he could do was stand back and admire the finishing skills of his fellow countryman.
Dropping
Guardiola recalled Kevin De Bruyne and Sterling as part of three changes which also saw David Silva relegated to the bench.
Sarri, meanwhile, made two changes with central defender Antonio Rudiger replacing Andreas Christensen and Willian dropping out for Pedro.
It took City less than four minutes to take the lead.
De Bruyne sent Bernardo Silva free from a clever free-kick after Marcos Alonso had gone AWOL and the Portuguese was able to pick out Sterling, who rifled his shot past the helpless Kepa.
If that was poor defending then Aguero’s
shooting four minutes later was even worse when he produced one of the most horrendous misses of his career.
Silva was the creator once again, leading the visiting defence a merry dance before crossing for Aguero at the back post.
It looked easier to score but, just two yards from goal, he shovelled his shot into the sidenetting.
Guardiola threw himself to the ground in disbelief, but five minutes later he was standing up again applauding the sheer brilliance of City’s record goalscorer.
There seemed little danger when Oleksandr Zinchenko weaved forward and fed the ball to Aguero, but he turned sharply and held off Rudiger before curling a stunning effort into the top corner to make it 2-0.
There was then no stopping Aguero.
But for some unforgivable reason Sarri’s men were keen to give him a helping hand.
Ross Barkley was the guilty party when he idiotically sent a looping header back towards his own goal and when the ball fell at the feet of Aguero, he shot on the turn to sweep it past Kepa.
Chelsea were 3-0 down inside 20 minutes and the game was over as a contest.
In the 25th minute Gundogan blazed home his side’s fourth of a remarkable first half. Aguero then headed against the crossbar but wasn’t to be denied his hat-trick.
And when Cesar Azpilicueta felled Sterling to concede a penalty, he converted it with ease in the 56th minute before Sterling completed the rout 10 minutes from time to avenge City’s 2-0 defeat at Chelsea in December.