The name on everyone’s lips around the country after Manchester City’s 4-0 victory was Sergio Aguero. More interestingly, the second most talked about player didn’t even pull on a shirt that night. Carlos Tevez – was he even needed any more? For most of the summer the blue half of Manchester, and countless new fans since the big money has been splashing around, was spent fretting about whether Tevez their captain would leave, and hat size whole it would leave if he did. They only had to wait 8 minutes after Aguero came on to see that the hole was easily filled by another diminutive Argentine.
And with Mancini’s recent assertions that Tevez will after all be staying, City now have 4 top class centre forwards – just as Manchester United did in 1999. There is another star in their galaxy, and this one might just shine bright enough to turn everything to silver.
Sergio Aguero has previously been compared to legendary compatriot Diego Maradona, he’s not the first and he won’t be the last to be called “The New Maradona” but in a recent press conference his club manager Mancini declared that “Sergio is a photocopy of Romario, they are the same player”. For me this is a far better comparison, although equally premature. Maradona often played as an attacking midfielder, Romario and Aguero are strict finishers- not involved in build up play so much, just there where and when it matters, to score goals. A contemporary comparison would be with Manchester United’s Javier Hernandez – they’ve even both got silly nicknames on their shirts.
Looking at these chalkboards, both players are focused centrally, and actually made few passes. Hernandez is on for 45 minutes and makes 20 passes, Aguero is on for half an hour and makes 9. Percentage-wise neither of them have brilliant pass completion rates, but that’s not their job, their job is to have the ball passed to them and to stick it in the net.
What’s also interesting is that the vast majority of the passes by Aguero are lateral, this is probably because there is no-one higher up the pitch than him. His only interest when passing, and this is true for other finishers such as Romario and Hernandez, is getting it back in a better position, or to buy himself some space. What we have here is a clinical striker.
And with Mancini’s recent assertions that Tevez will after all be staying, City now have 4 top class centre forwards – just as Manchester United did in 1999. There is another star in their galaxy, and this one might just shine bright enough to turn everything to silver.
Sergio Aguero has previously been compared to legendary compatriot Diego Maradona, he’s not the first and he won’t be the last to be called “The New Maradona” but in a recent press conference his club manager Mancini declared that “Sergio is a photocopy of Romario, they are the same player”. For me this is a far better comparison, although equally premature. Maradona often played as an attacking midfielder, Romario and Aguero are strict finishers- not involved in build up play so much, just there where and when it matters, to score goals. A contemporary comparison would be with Manchester United’s Javier Hernandez – they’ve even both got silly nicknames on their shirts.
Looking at these chalkboards, both players are focused centrally, and actually made few passes. Hernandez is on for 45 minutes and makes 20 passes, Aguero is on for half an hour and makes 9. Percentage-wise neither of them have brilliant pass completion rates, but that’s not their job, their job is to have the ball passed to them and to stick it in the net.
What’s also interesting is that the vast majority of the passes by Aguero are lateral, this is probably because there is no-one higher up the pitch than him. His only interest when passing, and this is true for other finishers such as Romario and Hernandez, is getting it back in a better position, or to buy himself some space. What we have here is a clinical striker.
