Sergio Aguero assesses Manchester City’s struggles in honest prediction for Erling Haaland under Pep Guardiola | OneFootball

Manchester City legend Sergio Aguero has reflected on his former club’s struggles this season and lauded striker Erling Haaland for his goalscoring exploits since joining from Borussia Dortmund in 2022.

Aguero left Manchester City as arguably the club’s greatest-ever player after a sensational, trophy-laden spell at the Etihad Stadium, having joined from Atletico Madrid in the summer of 2011 for a then club-record fee of £35 million.

The 36-year-old spent the best years of his career in Manchester and remains a hallmark of a groundbreaking decade of success for the club under Roberto Mancini, Manuel Pellegrini and Pep Guardiola.

Since Aguero’s departure in 2021 and subsequent retirement from professional football owing to heart and chest issues – that first came to light when the forward joined Barcelona – Manchester City have gone on to win their maiden UEFA Champions League title as part of a historic treble in the 2022-23 season.

At the heart of City’s recent success has been Haaland, who has broken record after record in his three years at the Etihad Stadium after the four-in-a-row Premier League champions won the race to sign the 24-year-old Norway international amid interest from Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich.

Aguero – who remains Manchester City’s greatest ever goalscorer, having netted 260 times in all competitions in 10 seasons at the Etihad Stadium – hopes and believes Haaland can go on to surpass his record should be spend his prime years in sky blue.

“I hope so! He (Haaland) a great player, he’s very close. I think he can be the one to get close to the goals I have, or even pass me. That’s a very nice thing in sport, and I hope that all those goals that he can score will help Manchester City to win titles,” Aguero said in a recent interview, as quoted by Mirror Sport.

“I think he (Haaland) will have many more successes, with goals and with titles. The goals can give him a record which can stay in history. For me, he’s a phenomenon, he’s a great scorer and I hope he stays at City and scores a lot of goals.”

Reflecting on City’s struggles this season, Aguero added: “The situation is not good, but I think that at some point this was going to happen. I think that Manchester City are one of the best teams in the world.

“At the end of the day, a bad season for a big team is obviously a complicated situation but the thing you have to remember with Manchester City is that they’ve been winning titles for many years. What (Pep) Guardiola did, winning titles so often, I don’t think anyone has done that before.”