Pep Guardiola fears Sergio Aguero may miss the remainder of the season as the Man City forward suffered a knee injury during Monday’s thrashing of Burnley.
City continued their resumed Premier League campaign with a second win from their two matches, hitting the Clarets for five with Phil Foden and Riyad Mahrez both netting twice and David Silva also getting on the scoresheet.
But it was not all rosy for Guardiola as Aguero was forced to leave the pitch slightly before half-time with an apparent injury picked up in a challenge with Ben Mee.
The Argentina international has been dealing with a knee issue for the past month and Guardiola said this incident appears to be a recurrence of the same problem.
“We’ll see tomorrow in a better way what he has,” said Guardiola after the match. “He felt something in his knee. He has struggled in the last month, some pain in his knee, so we will see.”
Quizzed on a possible time frame for Aguero’s recovery – and whether he’ll miss the rest of the 2019/20 campaign – Guardiola replied: “I’m not a doctor, but it doesn’t look good.”
City were at their brilliant best on Monday night but the thrashing of Burnley was overshadowed by the flying of a banner which read ‘White Lives Matter Burnley’ over the Etihad Stadium shortly after kick-off.
The Clarets issued a strong statement after the incident, condemning those responsible for the banner.
“We wish to make it clear that those responsible are not welcome at Turf Moor,” read the statement. “This, in no way, represents what Burnley Football Club stands for.”
Burnley captain Ben Mee also spoke out against the banner on behalf of all his teammates.
“We as a group of players condemn it, we’re ashamed, we’re embarrassed,” he told Sky Sports. “It completely misses the point of what we’re trying to achieve as a football community.
“It’s a minority of our supporters, I know I speak for a massive part of our support who distance ourselves from anything like that. It definitely had a had massive impact on us to see that in the sky.
“We were embarrassed, disappointed, upset. We are embarrassed that our name was in it.
“That they tried to attach it to our club. It doesn’t belong anywhere near our club.
“Fans like that don’t deserve to be around football.”
