Manchester City have once again had a season to forget when it comes to retaining their Premier League title and this season they have been too reliant on their little Argentine.
It’s been two years since City handed the league title back over to Manchester United in the 2012/13 season, which saw United win the title with five games to spare after a 3-0 home win over Aston Villa.
This season has seen The Citizens go from being title favourites, to a battle of the top two and all the way to the present day where City see themselves battling for the remaining places in the top four.
Along with Arsenal and United, City fans may still hold some glimmer of hope that the title is still achievable and that Chelsea will still drop points however that would mean Chelsea would need to lose four of their next eight league games (they’ve only lost two all season).
City’s form has slipped in disastrous fashion since the turn of the year and if it wasn’t for their early season goals from talisman, Sergio Aguero, then they could have found themselves in worse trouble at this stage of the season.
The Argentine notched up 13 league goals in 15 appearances before his injury in the home fixture against Everton. That leg injury saw him miss just over a month’s worth of football. Aguero currently sits on 17 league goals for the season, an increase of just three goals in his last 11 league matches since his return from injury.
Compared to last season Aguero has already equalled his tally of 17 goals in 23 league games but many a City fan will know that the team are so reliant on the Argentine to find the back of the net. Aguero’s goals this season have accounted for 28 per cent of City’s 82 goals in all competitions, and 27 per cent of their 63 league goals.
Any fan, critic or football pundit could not disagree that had Aguero not suffered his injury when he did, in the run up to the Christmas period, then he would have scored many more goals already this season.
In the title winning season last year Aguero’s league goals were not so heavily relied on at the same stage last year that his goals began to dry up, scoring just two goals in his final nine appearances of the season.
During this time last year City had the help of Yaya Toure (20) and Edin Dzeko (16) to back up the little Argentine and provide goals as City totaled 102 for the league season.
However this season has seen both the Ivorian and Bosnian fail to achieve the same statistics as Toure sits on seven league goals, and Dzeko on four, with only seven league games to go.
Wilfired Bony was brought in to help the Blues attack but even he has failed to get a run of games in the side and hit the form that everyone saw when he lead the line at Swansea City. So far Bony has only scored one goal in his five appearances for the club.
It would seem that City rely too heavily on Aguero and that without drastic changes at the club in terms of finding another prolific goalscorer to partner him, the club will continue to do so next year.
