Dubai: With enough experience of managing temperamental stars, Roberto Mancini will be hoping Sergio Aguero can bring an air of sanity to his attacking crop. But as to whether his Dh228 million record signing can be an aspirin to his offensive headaches is yet another expensive bet by the long-suffering Italian.
Between the on-and-off unhappiness of Carlos Tevez and the unstable-ways of wild-child Mario Balotelli; strikers at Man City have either flopped like Robinho and Edin Dzeko, or prompted strikes and riots like Emmanuel Adebayor. The fact that bad-boy Craig Bellamy is deemed normal within present company is what sets this all-star cast apart.
With 20 goals from 32 games last season, 23-year-old Aguero finished fourth in the Spanish League's top-scorers list with fifth ranking Atletico Madrid. Add to that his three goals in four match record at the recent Copa America for Argentina and it's clear Aguero has the promise to equal the man he's likely replacing at The Etihad Stadium, Inter-bound want-away Carlos Tevez.
Upfront alliance
However being well-partnered — like he is — either by the stabilising and consistent influences of Diego Forlan at Madrid or genius of Lionel Messi at Argentina is not a luxury Aguero can be guaranteed at Man City, such is the unpredictability of Mancini's fleeing and often mud-flinging star acts.
In fact the sixth most expensive football signing of all-time could well end in tears (like most of Man City's big money striking buys) such is the boys' inexperience in English football.
Tevez, Aguero's soon-to-be-predecessor at the Blues (provided Inter part with £50 million) spent six seasons in the English Premier League with West Ham and Manchester United before he became the league's top-scoring reliability that he was to City last season (albeit amid bouts of depression and homesickness).
Rather than an informed decision on one or two (even three for that money) proven, reliable and sans straight-jacket strikers, Aguero looks more like another expensive mound of polyfiller thrown at the ever widening cracks of Mancini's impatient-teen-playing-Championship-Manager style of coaching.
Having tweeted "already a City player [and] happy to be in this club and in this city," following his medical from Manchester's Bridgewater Hospital, Aguero is thought to be the ‘plus one' that Man City have left void in their team-sheet for the Dublin Super Cup friendlies at Ireland's national Aviva Stadium this weekend.
Professional advice
Pensive Forlan said it well when he told press: "If he [Aguero] is happy with the decision he has taken, then he knows what he is doing."
Such an open-ended and non-committal comment speaks volumes from Aguero's former strike-partner at Atletico Madrid and perhaps mimics the reservations of all the expensive-flop strikers, who been processed through the Mancini-mincer into the relative unknown with little in the way of silverware to show for it.
Profile
- Born: June 2, 1988 in Buenos Aires.
- Nicknamed ‘Kun' after a Japanese cartoon character with a similar hairstyle.
- Made his debut for Independiente in July 2003, becoming the youngest player in Argentina's top division at 15 years and one month.
- Was part of the Argentina side that won the Youth World Cup in Netherlands in 2005.
- Became Atletico Madrid's most expensive purchase in May 2006 at €23 million (Dh122.12 million), signing a six-year contract.
- Finished third in the list of top scorers in his second season with 19 goals and netted 17 in the 2008/09 campaign to help Atletico secure a Champions League spot.
- Made his debut for the senior Argentina side in a 3-0 defeat by Brazil at London's Emirates Stadium in August 2006.
- Scored twice and won a penalty to help Argentina to a 3-0 win over Brazil in the semi-finals of the Beijing Olympics. Argentina beat Nigeria 1-0 in the final to claim gold.
- Fathered a son, Benjamin, with Diego Maradona's daughter Giannina in February, 2009.
- Announced at the end of May he wanted to leave Atletico and take the next step in his career.
- Scored three times in four games for Argentina at the 2011 Copa America as the hosts fell to eventual winners Uruguay on penalties in the quarter-finals.
- Flies to Manchester on July 27 to complete his move to Man City and announces on his Twitter feed he is a City player.