Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini told the Daily Mail that he is not to blame for the injury to Sergio Agüero that will now see the striker side-lined for a month.
The Argentinian hit man will now miss City’s first leg Champions League match at the Etihad where they will take on Barcelona along with four premiership games starting with the top of the table clash with Chelsea on Monday night in Manchester.
Agüero had recently returned to the team following eight weeks out with a calf injury limped off the pitch midweek during the win over Tottenham at White Hart Lane just four days after having scored a hat-trick in the FA Cup win over Watford.
Later Pellegrini said that he would have liked to have brought his striker off earlier in the Watford game, but left him on because City was losing.
‘It wasn’t a mistake because for us the most important thing is to win the match that we have to play,’ he said. ‘At that moment we were losing and it was important for Sergio to continue playing.
‘Maybe if we were winning, he would have played 75 minutes so it was not an important amount. Maybe he played 10 or 15 minutes more, but I don’t think that was directly related to his injury – I would make the same decision.’
