Sergio Aguero has lost his appeal against an FA violent conduct charge and will now miss City’s next three domestic games including the derby clash with Mourinho’s Manchester United on September 10, as well as missing a meeting with Bournemouth in the Premier League and City’s EFL Cup trip to Swansea City.
Aguero’s apparent elbow on West Ham defender Winston Reid last Sunday was missed by referee Andre Marriner, but picked up by television cameras covering City’s game with the London team.
Aguero made no attempt to play the ball, and rashly lashed out on Reid with an elbow – which is very Due to Marriner admitting he had not seen Aguero strike Reid the matter was referred to a three-man FA panel of former elite match officials, who unanimously deemed the incident worthy of retrospective action.
Aguero was hit with the violent conduct charge on Tuesday and initially given until 6pm on Wednesday to respond. That deadline was subsequently extended by 24 hours, owing to the club’s administrative staff being tied up with transfer deadline day business on Wednesday.
A statement on the FA website said:
Sergio Aguero will serve a three-match suspension with immediate effect after an FA charge of violent conduct against him was found proven.
The Manchester City forward was involved in a 76th-minute incident with West Ham United’s Winston Reid on Sunday [28 August 2016], which was not seen by the match officials but caught on video.
The club denied the charge and submitted further that, if it was to be found proven, the standard punishment would be clearly excessive.
On finding the charge proven at a hearing today (Friday 2 September 2016), an Independent Regulatory Commission went on to reject the club’s further claim to decrease the three-match ban.
It’s a big blow to City as Aguero has had a fantastic start to the season scoring in the opening Premier League game, a 2-1 win against Sunderland, and contributed two more goals when City cantered to a 4-1 victory at Stoke on August 20.
He also overcame the blow of missing two penalties in Bucharest to hit a hat-trick in his side’s 5-0 toppling of the hapless Romanians.
It will be interesting to see what Guardiola does now as he is short of out and out striking options for the derby. Nigerian 19-year-old Kelechi Iheanacho could lead the line, although the City manager could turn to any of Raheem Sterling, Kevin De Bruyne or Spanish winger Nolito to play through the middle.
