
Sunderland face Man City at the Stadium of Light with Sergio Aguero popular in the latest betting odds to score first at a price of 7/2.
A lot has been made this season of the Premier League’s deadly duos at Liverpool, Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge, and at Manchester United, Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie, but the last week has shown that on their day Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero and Alvaro Negredo are irreplaceable.
Though a lot of the attention around City has been centred on the other end of the pitch due to Joe Hart being dropped, the Argentine-Spanish duo have 12 goals between them in the league this season, the same number as City scored as a whole against Norwich and CSKA Moscow this week, and fed by David Silva, Samir Nasri and Yaya Toure there will be plenty more this season.
New Sunderland manager Gus Poyet’s first game in charge was overseeing a 4-0 loss to Swansea and thogh they’ve bounced back with wins over Newcastle United and Southampton either side of a loss to Hull the Stadium of Light is unlikely to be a bright place for the home supporters.
recent years this part of the North-East has been a tricky hurdle for the Sky Blues having gone down 1-0 in league fixtures here for the last three years but it would be the mark of a desperate man to read anything into that having seen the form of Manuel Pellegrini’s men and Aguero was quick to dismiss it this week.
“The record is there to be broken,” he told the team’s official website. “Two years ago, we hadn’t won the league in 44 years and we won it, now we need to break this record which is only three games old. But that’s not the most important thing – the important thing is the three points.”
With United facing Arsenal in another of the afternoon’s fixtures those three points could see City within a win of Arsenal at the top of the table if their neighbours can beat the North Londoners.
If Pellegrini is to take this team towards the title in his first year he will need to start converting the raw data into away wins as although they lead the competition in goals scored, goal difference, shots on goal and successful passes they’ve already lost three game son the road to Aston Villa, Cardiff City and Chelsea.
There’s not much more room for error as the season takes shape so Pellegrini will be urging his forward men to make their attacks count and Poyet knows that the confidence in the City camp will be an obstacle to overcome.
“Sometimes you prefer to play them when they are in a bad run or when they have a few problems,” he said. “But they’ve been on fire for the last two or three games and it’s going to be very, very difficult.”