Sergio Agüero still hopeful of facing Juventus despite knee injury

Sergio Agüero is hopeful he will be fit to play in Manchester City’s opening Champions League group game against Juventus on Tuesday despite sustaining a knee injury early in his team’s 1-0 victory at Crystal Palace. City will monitor it closely, with Manuel Pellegrini admitting some concern after the game.

The Argentina forward was fouled by Scott Dann, who was booked for the offence, early on at Selhurst Park, with contact made with Agüero’s right knee. The striker landed awkwardly on the same limb and, although he did hobble on for the next five minutes, he was eventually replaced by Kevin De Bruyne.

“Thanks everyone for your concern,” Agüero tweeted later. “I got a hard hit and it prevented me from playing more. It doesn’t seem to be a serious injury though.”

City were already without Raheem Sterling, who had a slight hamstring complaint, and David Silva with an ankle injury but secured a 90th-minute winner when the 18-year-old Kelechi Iheanacho scored 54 seconds after coming on.

Yet, while this is now City’s best start to a top-flight campaign in 102 years, the potential loss of Agüero clouded Manuel Pellegrini’s mood. “It was an important kick on his knee,” the manager said. “We’ll see if he can recover between now and Tuesday. Sometimes you must show the red card immediately because you know the intention of the player, just to make him fall down.

“I don’t like protesting every decision like Alan [Pardew] does from the first minute, but that was an important decision.”

Asked how hopeful he was about the striker’s availability for the match against Juve, Pellegrini added: “It’s very difficult to answer that now. It’s important to see how he recovers in the next few hours. We’ll see, also, with Silva and Sterling. I hope both of them can be fit for Tuesday, but this is why I am so happy with the victory today.

“It’s always difficult to come back into the Premier League after the international break, mentally, and we didn’t have three important players out there. We were playing the team second in the table at home, a team who are playing very well and just beat Chelsea, so we had to play well.”