Aguero's rebirth at Manchester City is among Guardiola's greatest achievements

As the records mount up and visiting teams, from Newcastle United to Chelsea, scarcely bother to participate there’s a curious sense that Manchester City’s brilliance has already become mundane.

In the absence of real competition their football resembles a ballet recital more than it does a sporting battle and as a consequence feels oddly tranquil; a feeling that – as players stand and watch City perform – could easily be mistaken for hollowness.

Beauty in art or entertainment requires jeopardy to truly engage with an audience, and so the sheer domination of Pep Guardiola’s team can leave the viewer feeling a little flat.

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This will no doubt fade when we reach the latter stages of the Champions League and the write-ups become (rightly) sycophantic, but until then it is easy to stop paying attention – and to miss one of the most impressive, and important, achievements of the Guardiola era to date.

At the beginning of the January transfer window Sergio Aguero’s illustrious Manchester City career was all but over. An injury to Gabriel Jesus had triggered a sudden clamber for Alexis Sanchez’s signature, suggesting Guardiola had given up attempting to re-sculpt City’s record goalscorer. Aguero had been the perfect centre-forward – the comic-book archetype of a proper striker – for more than a decade, but all of a sudden football had moved on and his killer instincts (it’s called “selfishness” these day) no longer cut it.

Many City fans were bemused by Guardiola’s lukewarm treatment of their hero, but from a tactical perspective Aguero simply didn’t fit in.

Their perfectly choreographed attacks require constant movement from footballers who are capable of playing in several positions of once, tweaking their positions in a million tiny ways and obsessing over the details of how to link with one another. These are attributes that describe the universalist forward, of which Roberto Firmino is perhaps the best in the world, but they do not describe a head-down-and-charge-for-goal type like Kun Aguero.

Or at least they didn’t eight weeks ago, but over the last few matches something has clicked into place for the Argentine, who against the odds has emerged once again as the main man at the Etihad. The change has been dramatic, culminating in the two league wins last week over Arsenal and Chelsea in which Aguero was one of the best players on the pitch despite failing to score in either contest. This fact alone is a first for City’s number ten (a man who thrives on scoring goals and is virtually anonymous without them), but greater still was his contribution to the winner on Sunday, a cute reverse pass into the channel for David Silva. Such moments of quiet ingenuity, of unceremonious link-up play, are now a major part of Aguero’s game.

The level of detail in Guardiola’s coaching means each component part moves entirely in sync; six or seven shift at once, conjuring a pre-meditated pocket of space in which to pass the ball, recycle, and repeat, not unlike a skilled chess player forging attacks 15 moves ahead.

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The Guardiola tactical philosophy is far too elaborate to carry even a record-breaking goalscorer like Aguero. But throughout February and March Aguero has begun to drop off at exactly the right moment, filling the correct gaps and feeding the ball into the right areas, selflessly becoming a link in the chain; it might sound simple, but it requires great intelligence to see the angles and hard work to rewire your brain.

That the 29-year-old has finally succeeded is to his enormous credit and a testament to Guardiola’s unique coaching skills.

Taking place amid a period of casual dominance for City as they jog towards the finish line, Aguero’s dramatic change has been easy to miss. And yet suddenly this near-perfect team have found a new gear, reviving Aguero’s waning Man City career and leaving Guardiola’s supposed favourite, Gabriel Jesus, on the bench. Perhaps the Brazilian’s presence caused Aguero to panic and reassess his priorities, cementing Guardiola’s authority, or perhaps it just takes 18 months to re-mould an old brain like Aguero’s. Either way, the Argentine’s resurgence might just be Guardiola’s single biggest coaching achievement since taking the City job in the summer of 2016.