Zabaleta: Sergio Agüero return can help Manchester City surge to title

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/apr/10/zabaleta-sergio-aguero-manchester-city-title

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Pablo Zabaleta believes that Sergio Agüero's return from injury is perfectly timed and hopes that the striker can have the same sort of impact as another Argentina international did during the run-in two years ago, when Carlos Tevez came in out of the cold to help Manchester City claim their first Premier League title.

After being banished to the stands for much of that 2011-12 campaign following a bitter fallout with Roberto Mancini, the club's manager at the time, Tevez was reintegrated into the City squad in March and started the final six matches, during which he scored four times.

Agüero is now poised to return at a similar point in the campaign and is expected to feature in Sunday's potentially pivotal game at Anfield against Liverpool, after recovering from a hamstring problem that has restricted the club's leading scorer to only 73 minutes of Premier League football this year.

Zabaleta said: "Sergio is fit. He has been training well with the team for a few days now but he was not 100% to play against Southampton, so that is why the manager decided to leave him out and let him be fully ready for the next game against Liverpool.

"It's a good time for him to come back. I can see why people say it's similar to Tevez returning – although it's a different situation. Like with Carlos, it's great for any team to have the best players back in the team again, particularly at this part of the season. That's the good news for us. He is an important player and he is going to score goals. He is fast, he is quick. Sometimes we need a player like Sergio."

Agüero was in sensational form earlier in the season and had racked up 13 goals in 11 appearances when he was injured in the 5-1 victory at White Hart Lane at the end of January, in his last Premier League appearance. "Have we missed him? Yes, of course," Zabaleta said. "You always want the best players in the team to be fit for any game at this time of the season. But we know we also have important players like [Edin] Dzeko; Yaya [Touré] is having a great season; [David] Silva, [Samir] Nasri – we have a lot of talent in front. That is why, even without Sergio, we keep scoring goals. We can't just rely on him."

Agüero has not played a competitive game for a month and it remains to be seen how significant a role he will have at Anfield in a match that could go a long way to determining the destiny of the title. "We know that it is crucial. We know we must go to Anfield and try to win the game," Zabaleta said. "Every single game from now until the end of the season is going to be a final but we know Liverpool is one of the teams fighting for the title race, so we need to win.

"Liverpool score a lot of goals – we know they have great players in front with [Luis] Suárez, [Raheem] Sterling, [Daniel] Sturridge. They are in a great, great moment. I think we must work really hard not to concede any goal. But we have defended well for a few weeks – not conceding many. We know Anfield is always a very tough place to go and get points, the atmosphere there is fantastic. It will be a great game."