Aguero back in for City’s Liverpool clash

It is a timely return for Aguero, as fellow striker Wilfried Bony has been ruled out with a hamstring problem of his own, which was suffered in the draw with Aston Villa prior to the global break.

Aguero sat out City’s past seven games in all competitions after suffering a hamstring injury while on worldwide duty with Argentina at the start of October.

Sergio, also David, Samir Nasri, Gael Clichy the whole season, Fernando for a month and a half, [Pablo] Zabaleta played two games in the season, that is why we have a squad.

Nasri had said he was out for three months, but Pellegrini suggested his injury is more serious than that, adding: “Samir Nasri has a tendon injury in his right leg so now he must have surgery because it’s an important injury”.

“It’s always special, not only for Raheem, to play against a team (where) they spent a lot of years, for James Milner the same, that is part of the career of the player and they are now defending another shirt”, Pellegrini said. It’s an ankle and for different reasons he can’t be 100 percent fit. “I hope it’s the same as with Vincent, that next week he can be okay”.

Influential defender Kompany is out with a calf injury but Pellegrini believes the Belgian is close to regaining full fitness.

“I think that for me it is never a pressure to be top – you always want to be top as you only depend on what you can do”.

“Sergio is fit – he’s ready to come back”, Pellegrini said.

Pellegrini has also led the Etihad Stadium outfit through to the next stage of the Champions League.

“But he must start in this game because we don’t have Bony and it is important for the team to have Sergio”.

Of the meeting with Liverpool, Pellegrini said: “I think that one of the most important things in important games is to have a cold mind, maybe a hot heart but a cold mind, because there are a lot of mistakes, that is so important that I hope we can do it”.