It looks very much as though Sergio Agüero will be back to play for Manchester City’s crucial match against league leaders Liverpool on Sunday at Anfield.
The Argentinian striker has missed City’s last five matches with a strained hamstring that he picked up during their Champions League exit to Barcelona.
Despite missing many weeks this season to injury the 25-year-old is still the clubs leading scorer with 29 goals in all competitions, and it is his international teammate Pablo Zabaleta who thinks that his return could prove decisive for City as the Premiership reaches its final weeks telling Sky Sports: “It’s a good time for Sergio to come back. I can see why people say it’s similar to Tevez returning – although it’s a different situation.
“Like with Carlos, it’s great for any team to have the best players back again – particularly at this part of the season. That’s the good news for us.
“He is an important player and he is going to score goals. He is fast, he is quick. Sometimes we need a player like Sergio.
Following the clubs recent 1-1 draw at Arsenal the defender admits they have missed their top goalscorer.
“Have we missed him? Yes of course,” Zabaleta said. “You always want the best players to be in the team and fit for any game at this time of the season.
“But we know we also have important players like (Edin) Dzeko, Yaya (Toure) is having a great season, (David) Silva, (Samir) Nasri – we have a lot of talent in front.
“That is why, even without Sergio, we keep scoring goals. We can’t just rely on him.”
When seeing that Liverpool has scored an amazing 90 goals this season Zabaleta is stressing that they need to be resolute in defence.
He said: “Liverpool score a lot of goals – we know they have great players in front with (Luis) Suarez, (Raheem) Sterling, (Daniel) Sturridge. They are in a great, great moment.
“I think we must work really hard not to concede any goal. But we have defended well for a few weeks – not conceding many goals.
“We know Anfield is always a very tough place to go and get points. The atmosphere there is fantastic. It will be a great game.
“Every single game now is going to be like a final. We have belief. I think we have a great team to make success this season but it is not going to be very easy.”
