Why stray Aguero elbow could see City's Pep Guardiola revive a favourite tactic at Old Trafford

Sergio Aguero has forged a profitable career from an ability to hit the target with laser precision. His elbows, it appears, are as potent as his feet. He connected with Winston Reid in the throat. He is not just Alan Shearer’s successor as a Golden Boot winner; the deadliest elbow at the Etihad left the West Ham defender unable to speak and the Manchester City striker in danger of missing the most eagerly anticipated of derbies.

Pep Guardiola’s introduction to English football now includes a crash course in the disciplinary procedures. Should referee Andre Marriner, despite being close to the incident, declare he did not see it, the FA can charge Aguero. If so, a three-match ban would surely follow.

“Hopefully nothing happens,” said Guardiola whose managerial omnipotence has not been married with omniscience; like many of his counterparts, he claimed not to witness a moment of controversy. Yet it is not his way to rage against the machine. “If it happens, we accept and adapt. If we lose him, we lose him. We are going to play with 11 [players anyway],” he rationalised.

The possible, perhaps probable, absence of Aguero would represent the sort of problem Guardiola may regard as a challenge. The innovator has shown a certain orthodoxy in attack thus far in his reign. Four meaningful matches, culminating in Sunday’s 3-1 win against West Ham, have featured four Aguero appearances. Kelechi Iheanacho deputised against Steaua Bucharest in midweek. There must be a temptation, however, for Guardiola, the man who made the false nine fashionable, to revive a favourite tactic and confound Jose Mourinho’s centre-backs by giving them no-one to mark at Old Trafford.

City’s squad boasts candidates aplenty. Nolito even wears the No. 9. Raheem Sterling had a spell leading the line for Liverpool. Kevin de Bruyne deputised for Aguero at times last season. David Silva has been used as the furthest man forward by Spain. It is safe to say the answer will not be found in the boxer’s bulk of Wilfried Bony, the conventional target man turned City forgotten man. The only issue is that each is excelling in another role and their redeployment would require a reshuffle.

Aguero’s first three appearances for Guardiola yielded six goals. His fourth produced none for him, but an illustration of how the Catalan can render players more prolific. Sterling is the poster boy for Guardiola’s capacity to rehabilitate troubled souls. The manager presents himself as facilitator and adviser, rather than miracle worker. What, he was asked, had he done to transform Sterling, a player who slipped out of the side at the end of Manuel Pellegrini’s reign?

“Me? Nothing,” he replied. Instead, he argued he merely offered tactical hints. He likes wingers to start off as near to the touchlines as possible. “We say, if you stay in that position, you receive the ball quicker. After, when he receives the ball, it is completely his talent,” he explained. Sterling has the leeway to come infield. He had the new-found sense of serenity to finish twice, once with a measured sidefoot, once from an acute angle. The game ended as it began, with the 21-year-old celebrating.

It is not Guardiola’s way to judge players by their goal returns alone and he found flaws in Sterling’s display. “He was more brilliant in the games before,” he said. There is a case for arguing that the Englishman was not even the most impressive winger on show on Sunday. Nolito, the supplier of his seventh-minute opener, was terrific. He received a grounding in Guardiola’s thinking at Barcelona and possesses the pace and sharpness to implement his ideas.

It is not often in Sheikh Mansour era that City can be deemed to have got a bargain. Nolito, who cost a mere £13.8 million, may be a rare exception. He already seems to have a particularly productive understanding with Silva, who was long Aguero’s supplier in chief.

When Nolito went off, a slimmed-down, fired-up Samir Nasri came on for his first appearance under Guardiola; but for Sam Byram, with an improvised, backheeled clearance off his line, he would have celebrated his return with a goal. “Samir arrived [for pre-season training] overweight,” said Guardiola, again arguing he is at the mercy of his players’ whims. “His quality is on another level but it depends on him. If he wants to help us, wants to stay, wants to be part of something, it depends on him, not me.”

It suits a man who likes to appear humble to downplay his own effect. Yet he is the modernist who has rewound the clock to the 1950s by fielding what are, in effect, five forwards, with Silva and De Bruyne operating where inside lefts and inside rights once did. It explains why no-one has yet kept a clean sheet in City’s league games so far.

City’s high-risk football, entertaining as it is, affords opponents a chance. As an outclassed West Ham nevertheless threatened an equaliser, the purist in Guardiola made a belated concession to pragmatism with a late change: Aguero off, Fernando on to add solidity. It was the sort of substitution Roberto Mancini, who liked to introduce a defensive midfielder, might have made. It may be the last City see of Aguero in the league for a while. Guardiola, the manager who prizes a silky touch, may come to rue a brutal elbow.