Why Gabriel Jesus should follow Roberto Firmino's blueprint as Manchester City seek to find Sergio Aguero's long-term successor

By the time Manchester City’s record goalscorer took the field, they needed to score four times in 25 minutes. It was the impossible task. There was no 200th City goal for Sergio Aguero on Tuesday against Liverpool, just as there was not an epic comeback.

The telling, if unsurprising, element was that Aguero began on the bench. Gabriel Jesus started and scored the second-minute opener. It was his third goal of the campaign against Liverpool, just as he boasts a recent winner for Brazil against Germany. All of which may justify Pep Guardiola’s decision to sideline the club’s greatest goalscorer. Jesus can seem the City wunderkind, the prodigy who was Brazil’s first-choice centre-forward while he was still in his teens.

READ MORE: Liverpool’s win over City in pictures

READ MORE: Liverpool see off Man City to reach semi-finals

Factor in City’s potentially record-breaking Premier League campaign and Brazil’s status among the World Cup favourites and he can seem a phenomenon. And yet Jesus branded his performance in the 3-0 defeat to Liverpool one of his worst for City and his efforts this season are actually rather underwhelming.

It has been obscured by the progress elsewhere, which sometimes seems to encompass everyone at the Etihad Stadium. Raheem Sterling has scored more goals than ever before. So has Leroy Sane. By the end of the season, Aguero could have a career-best total too. Kevin de Bruyne has taken his game to another level. So, despite his difficulties against Liverpool, has Nicolas Otamendi. Fabian Delph has been a revelation in a new position, just as Ederson has in a new country and Kyle Walker at a new club. Fernandinho and David Silva have both sustained excellence and improved upon it.

Yet while Jesus has been unfortunate that injuries have rendered his City career a stop-start affair and he should not by goals – and indeed Guardiola certainly looks at far more than just a comparatively meagre tally of 13 – both his output in the scoring stakes and his displays hint at regression.

Perhaps it was unrealistic to expect him to maintain the remarkable ratio he showed last season, when he registered a goal or an assist every 59 minutes. Then he seemed to be hastening and hassling Aguero out of the side, offering a similar potency but much else besides.

Not now. The division between them has become starker. Aguero may be the scorer who has added other elements to his game, but it is notable how much more prolific he is. Sometimes when Guardiola prefers the Brazilian to the Argentinian, it seems less on form and more of an ideological statement. There is little doubt the younger man comes closer to his striking ideal, in the sense of player who is much more than a mere striker.

The prolific Sergio Aguero was only a substitute against Liverpool because Guardiola preferred Jesus.

But Aguero’s return of a goal every 93 minutes in the Premier League is far superior. Their figures in 2018, albeit a year when Jesus’ first appearance was delayed, are dramatically different: 15 goals to three. Aguero has the predator’s ability to win the winnable games, the ruthlessness to sniff out weaknesses and capitalise in scoring streaks. Tellingly, he averages two more shots per league game – 3.8 to 1.8 – but if that suggests Jesus is more altruistic, Aguero’s selfish streak has its benefits.

He delivers at more important moments: Jesus, those interventions against Liverpool notwithstanding, has also made far fewer crucial contributions than Sterling, Sane or De Bruyne. If an eight-week absence is a factor and the capacity of the wingers to find the net another, the reality is he could finish the season as City’s fourth- or fifth-highest scorer.

He has actually been at his most potent when paired with the Argentinian – their slender tally of 10 starts together has brought the pair 16 goals – and he is one of the few to suffer from the September switch from 3-5-2 to 4-3-3.

READ MORE: Pep sent off during bad night for Man City

READ MORE: 5 things we learned from the Etihad

READ MORE: Salah proud of Liverpool’s fighting spirit

One theory is that he sacrifices himself for others, doing much of his work outside the penalty area. He is Neymar’s sidekick in the Brazil side, Sterling and Sane’s for City. The alternative argument is that he is spared scrutiny precisely because they are scoring. He is often bracketed with his fellow forwards, men aged 23, 22 and 21 representing the future, offering shared qualities of speed and versatility.

They are symbolic figures, reflecting the rebranding of City, their youth highlighting Guardiola’s role as the zealous teacher. Yet the wingers are examples of exponential improvement; the centre-forward is not.

There is no doubt that he was a bargain at £27 million; equally a feeling at the Etihad Stadium that he would now command a fee of around £90 million seems misplaced unless others would pay for his status as Brazil’s first-choice forward or, because of his youth, for his potential.

A defensive forward can seem a contradiction in terms. Jesus wins more tackles than Aguero. Guardiola has said his high pressing is the best in the world. And yet there is a Brazilian forward in England who is marrying ball-winning with goalscoring. Roberto Firmino has 24 goals, the latest clinching City’s Champions League exit. He is harrier and finisher, looking indispensable to a Merseyside team in a way Jesus does not for a Manchester team.

He offers the way forward for a rare City player to feel something of a let-down this season. Jesus will never be a duplicate of Aguero, but he ought to imitate Firmino more next season.