This is a critical time of the football season and Manchester City fans reacted with horror when star player Sergio Aguero was withdrawn due to injury.
For Manchester City fans the bells had begun to toll, not as part of a rampant celebration but with echoes of a lowly death knell, for our talismanic star player was injured.
Against Fulham, Aguero limped off the pitch after 57 minutes and in the post match interviews Pep Guardiola reassured us the withdrawal was simply precautionary. Not a single City fan believed him though.
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For as our Sergio left the field of play he seemed to be signalling to the bench that he had felt something in his groin. Given he has spent much of the recent 2 week International break partying with supermodels it came as no surprise that he could have sustained a groin strain.
As is customary for City there was a light training session on Sunday and a further session planned for Tuesday afternoon in preparation for the Cardiff game on Wednesday. Aguero was absent for both of these and we could all appreciate that we were shortly to be told the extent of the injury lay off.
There are just 6 weeks remaining of the domestic football season and up to 8 weeks should we do the unthinkable and reach the Champions League final. During April we have the FA Cup Semi, two Champions League Quarter Finals and 5 must win Premier League games, including matches against two of the top 4 sides.
Losing Aguero when he has been on such a rich vein of form in recent months at any time would be hard but to lose him for a period when our fixtures are all so critical is a significant blow to our ambition.
We have seen Aguero suffer muscle injuries before and these tend to keep him out for a couple of weeks but then it tends to need a game or two to bring him back up to the right level.
Rumours from City are suggesting Aguero will miss games this week with a hopeful return against Tottenham in the Champions League next week pencilled in. We await official confirmation of this.
This means three things to us.
Firstly, by the time Aguero gets back to fitness it will be 4 weeks in all likelihood and he should be in a position to help us over the finish line in whatever competitions we remain in.
Secondly, Jesus plays best when he has a run of games. So this is his moment to seize and rewrite our history.
Thirdly, this is Manchester City and we will never do anything the easy way. This is written in our DNA. I fully expect that if we did actually reach a Champions League Final that we would have a transfer ban announced on the morning of the final and would forget our kit!
So maybe we shouldn’t be too pessimistic about Aguero. A light strain nothing more. No real problems. It is not time to stop the clocks and mourn his passing. Cheer up, as it just means we will face Cardiff and Brighton with Jesus and rampant wingers. This could be a blessing in disguise given the tribulations which lie ahead.