Sergio Agüero is a legend but the time is right to say goodbye 💙 | OneFootball

“Manchester City will bid a fond and emotional farewell to legendary striker Sergio Agüero when his contract expires this summer,” read the club’s official statement on Monday evening.

The timing of it came as a surprise, but the content did not. With Agüero’s contract set to run out at the end of June, his departure was beginning to feel more and more inevitable with each passing day.

Still, it was an emotional gut-punch for the City fans who have had the privilege of watching one of the Premier League’s greatest ever strikers don the sky blue shirt over the last decade.

And if the reaction on Twitter is anything to go by, Agüero’s departure at the end of the season will be a sad day for many non-City supporters too.

The Argentine’s dramatic title-winning goal against Queens Park Rangers in 2012 is football’s JFK moment. Everyone remembers where they were when it happened, and nobody will ever forget it.

There’s a good chance the sheer mind-blowing exhilaration of that moment will never be topped, that the stars will never align quite like that again. Martin Tyler did say “I swear you’ll never see anything like this ever again” after all.

But that’s fine. Don’t be sad that it’s over, be glad that it happened.

That’s a mantra City fans should keep in mind as they watch the final months of Agüero’s time in Manchester play out. Focus on the good times, as they say at the end of The Sopranos.

If Kun’s only meaningful contribution in a City shirt was that goal against QPR, it would have earned him a statue on its own.

But the little dynamo gave the club more than that. So much more.

He made a spectacular debut off the bench against Swansea in the opening game of the 2011/12 season and after scoring two goals and setting up another in just 31 minutes, you just knew City had landed a very special talent.

His freakishly consistent goalscoring record has helped the club win four Premier League titles, two FA Cups and five League Cups. In 2017 he became City’s all-time leading goalscorer and his tally currently stands at 257 goals in 384 games.

If you have watched Agüero play over the last 10 seasons, you have witnessed history in every sense of the word. And who knows? Maybe there is still a little bit more history to be made before he bids adiós to English football.

But as sad as it will be to see him go, the unshakeable truth is that the time has come. It will come for us all eventually and over the last 12 months or so, injuries have eliminated a tiny bit of that explosiveness that has made Kun so indomitable over the years.

That isn’t to say he won’t still do great things in the final chapter of his career, wherever that may take him, but City must keep moving forward into the future, no matter how hard it can be to let go of the past.

Perhaps the secret to sustained footballing success is not knowing how to build a winning team, but knowing when to dismantle one. Many great clubs have allowed their dynasties to crumble but City seem intent on learning from their rivals’ mistakes.

Yaya Touré is gone. Vincent Kompany is gone. David Silva is gone. Sergio Agüero is going.

It truly is the end of an era, but the darkest hour comes just before dawn and if Agüero’s exit opens the door for a generational talent like Erling Haaland to move to the Etihad in the summer, nobody in their right mind will look back on it with sadness.

“I was to join during the reconstruction era of 2011, and with the guidance of the owners and the contributions of many players, we earned a place among the greatest of the world,” said the man himself in his own statement released on Monday night.

Don’t be sad that it’s over, be glad that it happened.