Guardiola Won’t Rush Striker Back Into Man City Action After Injury

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has stated he will not rush star striker Sergio Aguero back into action, despite the blues lack of goals so far this season.

The usually free-scoring blues have scored just 10 goals and conceded 11 from 8 Premier League fixtures this season, a far cry from last season when City had scored 27 and conceded just 9, although the club’s European record has seen City score 3 in each game.

City’s all-time top goal scorer was an unused substitute in Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at Spurs, having returned to the squad following his recovery from a hamstring injury. It is the second spell on the sidelines for the Argentine striker, who missed the start of the season after undergoing knee surgery in June.

But the Catalan boss is taking no chances as he seeks to address the blues goal-scoring concerns. “We want him to come back to training again so he can recover a good feeling in his knee, this is the most important thing,” Guardiola said. “We wait for him and take it one step at a time. We have many, many games to play this season and we’ll need him. What we want is him to recover in his best condition.”

While City will qualify for the Champions League knockout stages with victory at Olympiakos tonight, Premier League form is eluding them at the moment and the blues have dropped 12 points so far and are eight points behind leaders Spurs. But Guardiola insists the blues will need to take one step at a time.

“We’ll try to get through [Champions League] to qualify and at the same time, recover, come back with good feelings that we can create chances and score goals.”