Manuel Pellegrini believes Manchester City have shown they can cope without Sergio Agüero but conceded that the striker’s fitness could be the key to progressing to the latter stages of the Champions League and other competitions.
The Argentinian returned from his latest hamstring injury to score City’s sole goal in the 4-1 defeat to Liverpool at the Etihad Stadium. Pellegrini’s side take on Juventus in the penultimate game of Group D in Turin on Wednesday evening with City having already qualified for the last 16, for the third season in a row under the Chilean.
Pellegrini is clear that if City are to reach the quarter-finals and beyond Agüero has to stay injury free. The Argentinian has suffered eight hamstring problems since joining in a total of 23 separate injuries and illnesses since joining the club in July 2011.
Agüero won last season’s Premier League’s golden boot award after scoring 26 times in the competition, and had 32 goals in 41 appearances for the club, his best ever return.
Pellegrini said: “Of course we must be able to play without Sergio and we’ve already demonstrated we can do it without him in the last month and a half. We qualified for the next stage of the Champions League, we were top of the Premier League until last Saturday, and qualified in the Capital One Cup [quarter-finals].
“But without doubt we are a better team with Sergio so if you want to arrive in an important stage of the Champions League or other competitions of course we need Sergio fit. If he can play it is better for us.”
Of his injuries, Pellegrini said: “The problem is not just with Sergio. An important amount of players have been injured in this part of the season and we have to play so many games. We must manage the minutes with all the players. Maybe Sergio has special muscles in the way he plays, but you cannot change that.”
Pellegrini wants City to defeat Juventus to try to top the group, and to offer a statement about the club’s status.
“Everyone criticised this club so much for its performance in Europe,” he said. “It was important to have important achievements, one of those was to qualify for round of 16 last two years. Before that we couldn’t do it.
“Now we’ve played in the round of 16, we were very unlucky to play against Barcelona [each time] but we have beaten Bayern Munich twice [in the group stage]. This year it is important to qualify. We have two spare games to win the group. It is one step more in Europe.
“It is also important to win away to Juventus for the future because it’s a big test in the Champions League. But the most important thing is to qualify already for the next stage. If we finish top of the group it doesn’t mean we’re going to have an easy draw, it depends on a lot of different things, but if we avoid these teams it will be important for our team.”
Pellegrini is without the injured Vincent Kompany, Wilfried Bony, David Silva, Eliaquim Mangala, Pablo Zabaleta and Samir Nasri.
“I hope David could be involved at the weekend [against Southampton],” the manager said. “He’s improved the last two days. Difficult for Vincent and Mangala to be. Nasri has four or five months out. Vincent has a problem in his calf. Bony I think can play at the weekend.”
