The Sergio Aguero Conundrum

Paully D

This is probably my most difficult choice at the minute. To go with Sergio Aguero or not?

At £11.5m, he's the 3rd most expensive player in the game this year but also came up with the 3rd highest points total last year, with 23 goals and 9 assists for a total of 211 points. Given that he's playing for the title holders and current favourites, all in all it's a fair price, but that doesn't make things any easier.

However, a closer look into his form last season showed that he was almost like a different player in home games and away games, with over 75% of his goals and 80% of his assists coming at home (this is mainly due to Manchester City's preference for attacking down the left at home V the right away from home, thus resulting in less shots, but that's for another thread) which is not something that is good news for us fantasy football players. Spend that much on a player and you would hope for production from him every week, whether that be home or away.

Another thing to consider is his time on the pitch. Of course we don't know what will happen this year but last season he only averaged 70 minutes on the pitch every week.

That said, it's difficult to pass up on a player who is more or less guaranteed 20 goals a season, favoured to be top scorer (the bookies are rarely wrong), is in 35% of teams (currently the most in the game from what I can see) and could get off to an absolutely superb start with a home opener against Southampton in which many people will probably captain him. If he does score big there it's already leaving a gap to climb and not many people will be able to get him in without taking further points hits.

So, overall a tough decision.

With Aguero at £11.5m, players such as Bent and Graham have much easier starts fixture wise, should score well for the first 10 weeks at least and would allow a much more solid team all over the park with the extra funds. But the way the pricing is done this year means that many people will have 2 of the 3 elite strikers (Rooney, Aguero or Van Persie depending on what happens with him) and still manage to put a very good team out whilst sacrificing the bench. Then again you also have to consider Tevez who, if he becomes a starter, at £9m would be an absolute bargain and may steal some of the thunder from Aguero too. They have, however, worked very well together in pre-season with Mancini saying this:

We were confident two weeks ago and I’m even more confident today. Sergio played very well and his partnership with Carlos has continued from last season. They scored a goal each today which is good. Hopefully we can continue his good form in the coming season.

What are your thoughts on Aguero?

massdebater

Aguero is the main man at City but it's difficult to look past Tevez at 9.0m. I'm taking a gamble on Tevez for the start of the season and if he can pick up starts he'll do well.

The logical thing to do would be to start the season with Aguero and downgrade to Tevez if he's starting regularly and scoring well. If both players are starting regularly, there's very little between them apart from Aguero's on penos.

jcunning

Thanks for the research Paully D, good work.

Rotation is always a risk with Mancio so with that kind of outlay, you want to be sure he'll be on the pitch to get you those returns. He's City's number one striker so I'm confident he'll get more minutes on the pitch than his striking colleagues at the start of this season. Last time round, he came off the bench for the opener at home to Swansea then started the following six PL games until he got injured, pulling his groin away to Blackburn Rovers. I remember it vividly, it was just after the international break at the start of October. I had just used my Wildcard and got my lowest score of the season, 22 points!

The first seven fixtures this season sees Man City host Southampton, QPR, Arsenal and Sunderland with trips to Liverpool, Stoke and Fulham. The home fixtures look appetising and seem worthy of investment to me.

Blatter

The other thing that should be taken into consideration with regards Aguero is that he's only just gone 24 so it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect an improvement on last season. It wouldn't surprise me if he started to score more regularly away from home this season.

froog

he's the best route into city attacking returns. although he had some issues as mentioned playing away he was still pretty awesome last year and with a year's "settling in" behind him and a league title to take some pressure off i expect him to improve even more from last year.

tevez is the thing tho, a whopping 2.5m cheaper and looks like the chosen partner for aggy. if he bags a goal or two against southampton expect a mass aggy -> tevez bandwagon.

i'm actually toying with having them both for start of season. if they're both scoring big, keep them, if one is more dominant the other leaves a large slot open for another striker. (tevez - > ade/torres, aggy -> rooney) albeit costing an extra .5m.

jenno99

At the back end of last season I got Carlos in instead of Aguero (in an effort to catch someone with Aguero). However, I was frustrated that Tevez seemed to be playing a deeper role behind Aguero and the result was that Tevez bolstered Aguero's goalscoring.

Fowler87

Aguero and Tevez combo for the first few weeks could solve the dilemma. Decide who to keep from then after:pac:

Lemlin

I have Aguero in. I see him as this year's potential RvP. It's worth noting that he started last season superbly. City changed tactics though and he dropped back a bit and his scoring dripped.

At the end of the season though, Tevez arrived in, City changed tactics back to the start of the season style stuff and he started scoring.

I think he'll do well this year and wouldn't be without him.

token56

As others have said the sensible approach is Aguero to start and switch to Tevez if he is matching him on points.

I think Aguero will get 20+ again this season especially if he has Tevez around him along with Silva and Toure playing at their best. Even without making many new signings this season just having a committed Tevez in their team seems to make City a good bit stronger.

dahat

Last season was Augero's first so like others have said i too expect alot of improvement from him this year,factor in that he takes penalties and he is a must imo....

mufcboy1999

dahat wrote: »

Last season was Augero's first so like others have said i too expect alot of improvement from him this year,factor in that he takes penalties and he is a must imo....

you clearly never heard of 2nd season syndrome !:) ... look at hernandez at united, even john oshea after his debut season but i think augero is good enough to not come down with a dose .