Guardiola Hails Aguero But Also Asks For More

This is a guest post from Vikki Steel.

Sergio Aguero scored a brace in Manchester City’s impressive four nil victory away to Tony Pulis’ West Brom on Saturday afternoon. Those who had a cheeky punt on Aguero to get a brace via drawnobet.co.uk would have been smiling from ear to ear.

It was Manchester City’s first victory in all competitions since 24th September 2016 but it was a result that lifted the Manchester club back above Arsenal at the top of the table on goal difference.

There have been some murmurings behind the scenes that Sergio Aguero, whilst having the technical qualities to fit into Guardiola’s style of play, perhaps does not press or run the yards that a typical Guardiola forward would.

In Barcelona only a few weeks back, Aguero was left on the bench much to the surprise of many, that may not have been the case if Aguero got through a similar workload as say Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez for example.

At The Hawthorns the Argentinean was at his brilliant best, latching onto a pass from İlkay Gündoğan to rifle low past Ben Foster.

His second, on 28 minutes, was even better, picking up a loose ball on the edge of the box, turning past his marker and smashing the ball into the far corner.

Aguero also played a big part in City’s fourth goal, flicking the ball through to the impressive Gündoğan to round off what was a thoroughly convincing away victory.

Guardiola said: “We need Sergio, We know how important it is for us when he can be as good as he is. He is part of the history of this club but I would like to help him still. That is my target. Help him to feel how important he is for us in in every game.

“He is one of the best. And above all that he is one of the nicest people I have ever met. I love working with the nice guys, and Sergio is one of them.”

You can’t help but feel the comments about wanting to help him improve is much to do with his work ethic without the ball, yet according to BBC Match of the Day pundit Danny Murphy, the City star striker has already improved in this aspect of his game.

Murphy said: “I think it is hard for Aguero to get much better in scoring goals, but he is looking a little bit more dynamic off the ball, closing people down and making runs.

“He was harrying people and that is not something that I associate with the Sergio Aguero of last season. He ran 10.2km today against West Brom. That is a lot different from last season when he was clocking less than eight on average.”