This decision has actually been the bane of most avid fantasy players’ lives for a number of seasons.

For such a quality goalscorer, the Argentine isn’t half injury prone. And it doesn’t help his case when the manager’s team selections are less consistent than the Government’s COVID response.

Premier League injury expert and friend/fool Ben Dinnery joined the BangAveragePod this week on behalf of free-to-play jackpot game Fantasy 5 to give us the lowdown on Aguero’s condition and the problem with picking him.

Last season, Man City’s star striker bagged 132 FPL points – the lowest since 2012/2013.

However, the 32-year-old only featured in 26 games, starting 18 of those – and so averaging 5.08 points per game.

In the 2017/2018 season, Aguero had a similar misfortune of only starring in 25 matches. A love and behold managed to score an incredible 21 goals, picking up 167 points and averaging 6.68 points per game.

Now, after a goal-scoring return off the bench in the Champions League in midweek, can Aguero make a difference again in this weekend’s Manchester Derby – even as a substitute?

Speaking on the pod, Ben explained how Pep rushing his best finisher back to action hasn’t done him any favours.

He said: ‘Is he fit to start? Quite possibly. Will he start? No. Thankfully Pep has already come out and stated that he won’t. Pep had his fingers burned at the start of the season. Aguero coming off the back of an almost four-months out after knee surgery.

“He starts him, goodness knows why, in three games in a week. Aguero suffered a setback with his hamstring and he’s been managed carefully since. Gabriel Jesus starts this weekend in the derby for City.”

Aguero’s goal-to-game ratio is next to none in the past five seasons, however the risk is how much time will he get in Saturday’s derby?

The simple dilemma for us fantasy players (and we guess more so for the Man City backbench) is that playing Aguero more surely just increases his chance of injury again.

“Statistically, the more minutes you play, the increased risk of picking up an injury,” Ben added, saying five substitutes could help manage the strain of overplaying key stars.

“If you’ve only got 3 subs, then more players are playing more minutes and more games, and they would be more susceptible to picking up a knock. Would five substitutes help alleviate that? It could be one factor to managing squads.”

Ben took time out of his “busy schedule” to join the pod and run through Gameweek 12’s fixtures and explain how Fantasy5 works.

He said: “Fantasy 5 is fairly new on the scene. Great little concept. Free to play. It’s a spin on the official fantasy game in terms of the points system, but you pick five players on any particular gameweek. They select the fixtures and within each fixture, there is a list of players where they have a predicted points total. If you surpass that total on all five selected players, you win £10,000.

“If you know your stuff and you can scratch beneath the surface, there are one or two players that slip underneath the radar.”

Agüero has a points target of 6.5 this week on Fantasy5 meaning two goals would surpass his total and also put him level with Wayne Rooney as joint top scorer in the Manchester Derby.

Ryan’s Fantasy 5 pick 

Gabriel Jesus – 6.5

Olivier Giroud – 5.5

Son Heung-min – 8.5

Andrew Robertson – 6.5

Matt Lowton – 6.5

If Ryan’s five players successfully achieve their points total, the £10,000 prize will be donated to charity 🙂