Sergio Agüero will be out of action for six weeks, following his car crash in Amsterdam, according to Argentina’s team doctor Donato Villani.
Manchester City believe their top scorer will be out for between two and four weeks after breaking a rib in the road accident last Thursday.
That timescale would rule the 29-year-old out of Argentina’s final two World Cup qualifiers against Peru and Ecuador, but could see him in contention for City’s Premier League match at home to Stoke on 14 October.
However, Villani has suggested Aguero is likely to be out for longer than expected.
He told www.tycsports.com: “He’s feeling very bad because he was really looking forward to coming to play and this incident, which had nothing to do with him, left him out of the two games. He’s going to be off the pitch for a month and a half.
“He can’t move in his house, nor get in and out of the car. He seemed very down to me because we wanted to be here.”
A six-week lay-off would rule Agüero out of both of City’s Champions League group games against Napoli, as well as four more Premier League games, including the home match with Arsenal on 5 November.
Agüero suffered the injury in Amsterdam at 11pm on Thursday when his taxi hit a lamp-post as the striker was being driven to the airport to fly back to Manchester. Agüero was on a day off and had been attending a concert of the Colombian singer Maluma. The incident occurred less than 48 hours before the Premier League game at Chelsea, which City won 1-0.
