When Sergio Aguero steps out for Barcelona in El Clasico against Real Madrid on Sunday, the next chapter of his career will start in earnest.
However, Manchester City’s all-time leading goalscorer has some words of wisdom for players who might be getting a little frustrated by Pep Guardiola’s selection quirks - one in particular.
“[Guardiola] does not care if he has to leave out of the team [a player] that had scored three goals in the last games,” Aguero told El Pais recently.
“The name of the player does not matter. Unless it's Messi.”
Riyad Mahrez might be in possession of a Ballon d’Or nomination, but he is not Lionel Messi.
As if to prove Aguero’s theory, he scored twice in the 5-1 midweek demolition of Club Brugge - clinically dispatching a penalty before completing the rout with an assured finish.
Mahrez, with six goals in all competitions, is City’s top scorer this season. But last weekend’s 2-0 win over Burnley was his first Premier League start since the opening weekend of the campaign and he finds himself back on the bench for Saturday’s tea-time engagement at Brighton and Hove Albion.
Gabriel Jesus, reborn in a right-wing role this season, is back in the starting line-up, perhaps with an eye on his supreme pressing abilities given Brighton’s commitment to playing out from the back under Graham Potter.
Surely it cannot be as rudimentary as Mahrez - an ever-present in the Champions League - being Pep’s European winger and Gabriel now being a man of 100 per cent pure Barclays?
Either way, their high-class battle for supremacy on City’s right flank will be watched from afar by Raheem Sterling, who was not fit to travel to the Amex Stadium.
“I am going to tell you something about Raheem,” Guardiola said in a pre-match interview with Sky Sports. “The last three weeks, one month is one of the best moments that he has had on the pitch in the last year and a half.
“At the moment, the way he is playing and behaving on the pitch… he plays 20-25 minutes he gets four or five chances. He didn’t score, one day he will score. All we want from Raheem is that. Now he is back and I see him really well.”
Sterling and City fans everywhere who are desperate for him to break that duck will have to wait a little longer. But even when the England star does score again, it will provide no guarantees.
Just ask Riyad Mahrez.
What do you think of the XI Pep Guardiola has selected to face Brighton? Follow our City Is Ours editor Dom Farrell on Twitter to get involved in the discussion and give us your thoughts in the comments section below.
