Sergio Aguero says Manchester City will learn from Bayern Munich lesson

Manchester: Sergio Aguero has two nuggets of good news for Manchester City supporters in this trying week of Bayern Munich’s humiliation of their team. The striker says that he never contemplates leaving the club and he believes Wednesday’s 3-1 defeat by the Champions League holders may prove a pivotal moment in City’s quest to conquer the continental elite.

Of the emphatic lesson handed to the 25-year-old and his teammates by Arjen Robben, Franck Ribery, Philipp Lahm and company at the Etihad Stadium, Aguero says: “Clearly it was a bad day. We knew Bayern were a fantastic team and they proved it. But today is a different day and we have to carry on and keep going. It’s just something that happens in football.”

This is only City’s third Champions League foray so there is no shame in taking a beating from a Bayern team who appear an even stronger, slicker and faster juggernaut because of the influence of their new coach, Pep Guardiola.

So, could the ordeal be important for City’s fortunes in the competition? “Yes, it could be,” says Aguero. “It could be an experience for us to learn and perhaps we can work on that and help us for the next time we find ourselves against another fantastic team like Bayern.”

Joe Hart again drew scrutiny for the mistakes that allowed Ribery’s opener and Robben’s second-half strike, both of which beat him from distance. But after a smiling Hart was seen leaving Carrington, Aguero is certain about the goalkeeper’s status at the club. “Joe Hart is one of the best goalkeepers in the world, we all know that,” he says. “We can all have good and bad days. But he will, without a shadow of a doubt, come out bouncing and prove what a great goalkeeper he is.”

When Aguero looks around that City changing room, he sees Yaya Toure, who has tasted Champions League glory with Barcelona, and David Silva, a World Cup and European Championship winner. Players such as these give the Argentinian confidence that Manuel Pellegrini’s side can grow into the competition. “Yes, the club has done things the right way in the last four or five years,” he says. “Not only the players who are here now, but the fantastic players that have been in the club. Now we have a new manager with a new challenge, we need time to implement his ideas. But the club is doing the right thing, it’s doing it properly. We’re all fighting for the same, which is to make the club the best possible.”

He is clear about what City can achieve. “We will try to always do the best whether it is the Premier League, the Champions League, a cup game. We always want to win and we always want to do the best for Manchester City and the fans.”

Champions two seasons ago, Aguero believes they can win the Premier League again. “We are improving every year. The club is growing, we are working in the same direction to get as high as possible. Some years are better than others. But it’s a much better club, a much better team than it was four or five years ago. So we just have to go in the same way.”

He joined City in summer 2011 and is contracted until 2017, with no plans to leave. “I’m very happy at City, very happy since the day I came. I knew that the project was good and in my head there is nothing else but Manchester City, so how long I’m going to be at City is just never a question,” he said.

“I’m happy here, my family’s here when they come to England, all I can do is give everything I have for the club and concentrate on achieving for the club.”

This loyalty to City is shared by his son, Benjamin, whose mother, Giannina, is Diego Maradona’s daughter. With Aguero now divorced from Giannina, Benjamin lives abroad but is still a City supporter. “Yes. And he’s very aware, when I go away from him he doesn’t say: ‘You are going to Manchester’. He says: ‘Oh you’re going to City’. And, he goes to school and is always wearing the Manchester City top, so he’s a big fan.”

A YouTube clip of Benjamin aged 18 months suggests he already has his father’s rocket of a right foot. With arguably the world’s best ever player for a grandad, could Benjamin turn out to be better than either Maradona or Aguero? “If it is true that it comes from the genes, then he will be quite a good player,” he says. “But let’s see what will happen because he enjoys roller-skating and playing hockey.”