Premier League 100: Have a look, take a touch, hit it early − the sublime predictability of Sergio Aguero

There have been more exciting strikers to watch in the Premier League, more unpredictable, more graceful and more bewitching. But for Aguero predictability has always been the point. There is nothing new to what he does, week after week for the last eight years. Simply a repetition of the same steps that have delivered 161 Premier League goals already: have a look, take a touch, hit it early. Repeat again next time.

It is impossible to think about Aguero without thinking of what happened on 13 May 2012, with 93 minutes and 20 seconds on the clock. And you can look at that as one of the greatest moments in the history of the Premier League, the goal that won the title with the final kick of the season. But you can also see it as classic Aguero, typical Aguero, predictable Aguero: look, touch, hit. Number 23 out of 161 in a continuing series.

There have been plenty of great strikers whose careers have been marked out in phases: Thierry Henry started out wide before moving through the middle, Wayne Rooney played across the front line and ended up in midfield, Cristiano Ronaldo was the greatest winger of one era and the greatest striker of the next one.

But not Aguero.  The story of his Premier League career has been more about a narrow focus on the same set of relevant repeatable skills, perfecting his specific craft, not worrying about anything else. The environment has changed and Aguero has aged but the fundamentals remain the same: have a look, take a touch, hit it early.

So while City teams have changed over the years, Aguero has not. Because what he does has always worked. It worked under Roberto Mancini’s highly-strung melodrama and tactical austerity: Aguero’s goals fired City to that first Premier League title. It worked under Manuel Pellegrini’s more holistic approach, as he encouraged a squad at its physical peak to express itself, with initially spectacular results. And it worked under Pep Guardiola, the hyperactive tactical ideologue, who challenged Aguero and got more out of him than anyone else.

It feels very unlikely now but Aguero’s position at City was under threat when Guardiola arrived, especially when City spent £27million on Gabriel Jesus from Palmeiras. There were even big games – like Manchester United away in December 2017 – when Guardiola would pick Jesus over Aguero. That would never happen now. Aguero has made himself more indispensable than ever before, his near-post nous and cold reliability making him the perfect man to keep finishing those low pull-backs that City work so hard to make for him. In a team that is designed to take chance out of the game, that has perfected a method of playing that is impossible to stop, Aguero is the man that applies the finishing touch to almost every move.

Jesus may well be the saviour of City in the long term but for now he is just the latest and youngest on a long list of strikers who have found themselves in Aguero’s stocky shadow at City. When he arrived in 2011 City had Carlos Tevez, Mario Balotelli and Edin Dzeko, three big stars in their own right, and yet Aguero has outlasted all of them by years. So too Wilfried Bony, Stefan Jovetic, Alvaro Negredo, Kelechi Iheanacho, Nolito and every other partner Aguero has had over the years. Maybe he is not an easy man to play alongside, because of that same self-centred focus on his own skills and his own scoring. The best partner he has had was Negredo, the most selfless understudy of the lot. But it is difficult to accuse someone of selfishness after 161 Premier League goals.

By being so consistent, so present and so reliable, Aguero has made himself one of the most successful foreign strikers in Premier League history. His three Premier League titles put him one behind Didier Drogba, level with Denis Bergkamp and Carlos Tevez, one ahead of Thierry Henry. But Aguero could argue – if he especially cared about these things – that he has been as consistent as any of them. Two more league goals this year and he will have six 20+ Premier League goal seasons, and his fifth in a row. Drogba only managed that twice in nine seasons, Tevez twice in seven. Only Henry, just as consistently prolific in the early 2000s as Aguero has been in the 2010s, can match his record.

Aguero will never be as big as star as Henry. He does not have the same charisma or style. He does not play for such a well-supported club. Even now, eight years after his arrival, not much is known about his life away from the pitch. ‘All or Nothing’, Amazon’s Manchester City documentary, portrayed a pared-back domestic life for Aguero, with him sat killing time in his large empty flat, watching his favourite westerns and action films on DVD on repeat. Just waiting to get back out on the pitch.

When Aguero speaks publicly, in brief, in limited English, after a match, he never gives much away. Beyond the obvious glee he has in scoring and winning, and pride in his mastery of his specific skills, have a look, take a touch, hit it early. That is all that has ever mattered with Aguero, and he has done it better than almost anyone else.

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