David Silva's Left Foot: City Slickers Seal Sergio's Saughtafter Signature.

Thursday 28 July 2011

City Slickers Seal Sergio's Saughtafter Signature.

Today saw Manchester City finally announce the signing of Sergio 'Kun' Aguero from Atletico Madrid. Although Aguero actually confirmed it himself via Twitter last night that he was "already a City player." The highly rated 23 year old Argentinian forward was one of City's main summer transfer targets with Carlos Tevez desperate to head out of the door.

Initially City were wanting to sell Tevez before signing Aguero but with the transfer to Brazilian side Corinthians falling through and no other offers coming in, City weren't willing to take the chance of someone else signing Kun. The deal is thought to be worth in the region of £38m which will be the highest fee paid for a single player at the club to date.

Aguero, who started his career at Independiente, holds the record for the youngest player to feature in the Argentine First Division, a record previously held by his father in-law Diego Maradona. He also won the Golden Boot (scoring 6 in 7 games) and the Golden Ball in the 2007 U20 World Cup.

Sergio apparently got the nickname Kun from his grandparents who believed he looked like Kum Kum, the Japanese anime character. Personally I think he looks more like the original Karate Kid. Any other shouts?

It was reported that Kun had been speaking to one of his countrymen during the Copa America about life in Manchester before deciding on joining the club. Thankfully it was Pablo Zabaleta and not Carlos Tevez. Zabaleta, unlike Tevez, has embraced life in Manchester since his move from Espanyol and is not only now fluent in English but is also picking up a Mancunian twang to his accent. City fans would hope that Aguero shows the same attitude that has seen Zabman become one of the Manchester City's firm favourites, especially last season (2010-11)

Can you imagine what Tevez would have said to him? "Well Manchester, it only has two restaurants for a start. It rains too often too and there's no beaches. There's nothing to do at all. Oh and don't even bother going to the cinema or even trying to talk to anyone because guess what? They talk English! You don't want to have the bother of learning another language now do you?"

Just how the signing will impact on the Tevez transfer saga is yet to be seen but as it stands now City have Sergio Aguero, Edin Dzeko, Mario Balotelli, and Carlos Tevez who are likely to play. Adding to this, Emmanuel Adebayor and Craig Bellamy are also still on the wage bill, so City may want to reduce the asking price for those two in order to reduce their outgoings.

It will be interesting to see how Mancini goes about picking who starts as Aguero has recently been keeping Tevez out of and performing better than him in the Argentina squad. Even in the Copa America when Tevez was being chosen ahead of him that appeared to be a mistake as Aguero outperformed him when he came on to the pitch.

The domestic league stats for the two are also very similar for the 2010-11 season.

Carlos Tevez Sergio Aquero

31 Games 32

2532 Minutes Played 2676

20 Goals 20

127 Minutes Per Goal 134

45 Shots On Target 55

41 Shots Off Target 49

6 Assists 2

83 Pass Completion % 77

Of course Sergio is likely to take a bit of time to adjust to a new league and a new team, but the club's record signing certainly possesses all the neccesary attributes to be able to be a big success at Manchester City. He shouldn't have too much trouble settling in, there's plenty of Spanish speaking teammates to get along with while he finds his feet in England.

The signing also seems to have excited laughing boy Micah Richards as he tweeted "Aguero I pray! Tevez Balotelli Dzeko Ouch! City are back"