Aguero’s injury a crippling loss for Manchester City
By Evan Siegel
Having burst out of the gates for five wins and one draw, Manchester City suffered an injury loss at the worst possible time.
Manchester City are sitting atop the Premiership at the moment, tied with United with sixteen points. After six matches, United have won five, and drawn once. City is also way ahead of the pack in total goals scored, with twenty-one.
Manchester United are sitting in second place, four goals behind City. Tomorrow is a massive clash with Chelsea, on the road at Stamford Bridge. Sergio Aguero’s injury however is a big deal for City, considering that the team is fighting to retain its place atop the tables.
Aguero sustained the injury while in a minor car crash in Amsterdam. The initial timetable is an encouraging one for City, as the expectation is that he will only miss one game, and a total of two weeks of training.
The development leaves open a door for Gabriel Jesus, the twenty-year-old Brazilian forward who already has four goals on the season. This also paves the way for City’s experienced midfielders to become more and more involved in the actual goal scoring.
David Silva, Fernandinho, and Yaya Toure are the more experienced players in the midfield for Pep Guardiola who will use his experience managing Barcelona and Bayern Munich to unleash his strong group of midfielders.
Leroy Sane, Kevin De Bruyne, and Fabian Delph will be a challenge tomorrow for Chelsea, and all future challengers the rest of this season. But the loss of Aguero for tomorrow’s match is a tough loss for the leaders of the Premier League.
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Chelsea are in an ideal position for this game. Being just three points and only two spots behind the two Manchester giants, Chelsea play hosts for a massive clash between two of the world’s best teams. Chelsea cannot afford to fall behind by too many points early on in the season, something that has plagued them over the last ten seasons.
City may very well lose their stronghold on top of the tables after tomorrow. Chelsea are still an extremely formidable opponent, who combined with their home crowd will be a tough task for City. Chelsea are in a good position to snatch the lead away from City and begin to make things a two-way race between themselves and Manchester United.
While City have only one game to currently be concerned with, this being tomorrow’s clash, there is cause to pause and wonder if the team is properly prepared to move forward should Aguero unexpectedly miss extended time.
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Gabriel Jesus is currently the only other striker on the team besides Aguero. While Guardiola should be able to seamlessly adjust his tactical mindset to prepare for this, there is a definite weak link in the squad that has just been exposed. Auger may only miss one game, but lack of substitutions and no apparent insurance policy is a poor way to go forward for the current leaders of the Premiership.