Life without Aguero

[Sutter Kane]

So, on the presumption that City will despatch Huddersfield next week... Aguero will have a DGW27 against Sun (A) and STO (H).

Triple Captain material?
With the cup game against Boro an opportunity to rotate, it would be odd if he didn't start both games.
But then... Pep innit.

A QF cup game at Boro is more difficult than either a home game vs Stoke or an away game at Sunderland so I disagree with this. I think it's highly likely he gets benched for one of the two games. And then goes on to miss GW28 too. Won't this make many people light in GW28 as well having to splash one or even two transfers on him.

Highly likely? Wow, that's a bold statement. You think it's say over 80% likely?

About 70-80% I guess. With so many games in a short space, the only thing I can think of for Kun to play both is Man C just not taking the FA Cup seriously and resting a few players on the 11th March. But I'm not sure whether we are expecting a Guardiola personality transplant?? Boro will play their strongest team at home and I think they'll fancy their chances home vs a Kunless City. As mentioned above, Pep has fielded strong teams in the cup; the league is probably gone so he'll want a trophy of some kind and they're fairly close now. As also mentioned though, it's Pep - Aguero could play all 6 in 18 days...

[Stemania]

If it's

Sunderland(a) PL, Sunday
Stoke(h) PL, Wednesday
Middlesbrough(a) FA Cup, Saturday
Monaco(a) CL, Wednesday
Liverpool(h) PL, Sunday

then the Boro game is to me the one with the very obvious big rotation threat, not the potential Stoke DGW fixture.

I'm sure I read an article (linked by CK?) with Pep saying that in GWs BC Aguero was a key player and he had picked Kun in every game he was available for except Barca (tactical) and Burnley (2 days after previous game - but played 45 from bench and scored anyway) - plus Everton where Pep said he was rested after a long international trip in the same way Sanchez was (Edit: to be precise, in GW4 after the int break). Any GWs AD are fairly irrelevant now Jesus is out.

Looks a really great bet for 2 games in GW27 to me, though I'm not sure I can actually squeeze him in should City go through.

[ZeroRemorse]

Aguero won't get rotated in the league in he DGW IMO.

They're must win fixtures for City and they will field close to their best 11 as possible, with exceptions maybe in the MF.

They need all 6 points from SUN and STK with a run of LIV, ARS and CHE coming up after.

No doubt Pep will want to play him into form, it's not like he's been played much in the past few months.

[I Am Ville]

Think I am going to leave enough in the bank for Kane to Aguero in GW27 and TC him. TC very late in the season could be dangerous as players lose interest or get rotated to blood youth etc. Everything could be settled by GW37. GW34 is the one worth holding for but could be cup final and CL considerations around then?

[MPTree]

Wrote out a reply in the weekly transfers thread, but thought it might be better here:

MPTree - Have you looked at Aguero's stats yet, perhaps in comparison to KDB?

I have had a gander, yeah, though it's a little problematic doing recent comparisons since Aguero's only had 2 starts in the last 6GWs. If anything though, it makes it even more impressive that he's not further behind his rivals, numbers-wise (last 6GWs):


He leads KDB in terms of attempts on goal (and penalty area involvement), even having played over 120 minutes less these past 6GWs:


...And his shot map from the same time period looks pretty good to me:


KDB dominates him with regards to chances created (11 - 2) and general involvement in the final 3rd, but perhaps you'd expect that. Minute for minute he's up there with the best of them. I did a very crude normalisation of his numbers based on him having played approximately 60% of the time his fellow forwards have these past 6GWs, and (post-extrapolation) he's more or less on par with Kane, though take that with a pinch of salt.

All in all, he looks like the same old Aguero to me. Only issue, of course, is the degree to which Pep rotates him, though I'm pretty sure I'll bring him in next week regardless.

[Mav3rick]

Nice post, thanks. It certainly looks like on a per-minute basis it's business as usual for Aguero - a chance every 21 mins, which is better than Kane, and 4 big chances compared to Kane's 6. He's down on his accuracy, but it's Aguero, I'm happy to assume that if you give him the chances he'll put them away.

I'd certainly feel pretty confident captaining him with those numbers, and won't try to second guess the manager. The pen issue as Stem said elsewhere probably puts me off the TC but I'm not against it. In many ways, I do hope city go out of the FA cup so I don't have to make this call