The Sun Newspaper

THE iconic 93:20 moment takes pride of place among the huge banners on the side of the Etihad Stadium.But in two months, Sergio Aguero — the man twirling his shirt around his head on that May day nine years ago — will be consigned to the history books.
Erling Haaland would be great for Man City – but they must see off the threat of rivals Man Utd firstCredit: Reuters
And Manchester City will be looking for a new poster boy to try to fill the enormous void left by their record 257-goal scorer.
Step forward Erling Haaland, who tops Pep Guardiola’s shopping list this summer — IF City can make the numbers work.
Whoever steps into the boots of the fourth highest scorer in  Premier League history is going to have to back themselves.
Borussia Dortmund striker  Haaland, 20, certainly does. His old Molde boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer — who would also love to bring him to Manchester this summer — can testify to that.
The current United manager recalled his early days working with the teen sensation.
He told Sky Sports: “He came as a 16-year-old and you never know with injuries. He struggled with his knees when he first came.
“But I could see someone with personality. I remember him brushing off and putting our  centre-back and centre midfielder — two big lads — on the floor.
“He asked them to get up. He’s a top personality and he’s proving to everyone what a good player he is. We played against Zenit in the Europa League play-off and the referee came to me afterwards and said, ‘He’ll play in the Champions League soon’.
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Haaland would do a fine job replacing outgoing City legend Sergio AgueroCredit: PA

“We did know. I played with his dad Alf, he’s a bit old school in that respect but he’s a winner.”
Although he does not turn 21 until July, Haaland already has the record to back up that swagger.
The Norwegian’s appetite for goals would almost make the master marksman Aguero blush.
Back in summer 2019, Haaland scored NINE goals playing for his country’s Under-20s in a 12-0 World Cup group stage win over Honduras.
Yet instead of celebrating the achievement, he was kicking himself afterwards for not getting double figures.
He said: “It annoys me a little bit that I didn’t score with my last kick of the game.
“I’ll have to sit down and think a little bit about it and maybe I’ll work out what happened.”
Due to his height of just over 6ft 3in, you cannot really miss him on the pitch.

But do not be fooled by his stature — he is also one of the fastest players in the German league and does not play like a   typical burly No 9.
Keep an eye on his post-match interviews, too, if he does land in England. Unlike Aguero, Haaland seems to relish a bit of jousting with journalists!
Solskjaer got an early glimpse of the youngster’s character as well as his goalscoring ability when he made his bow in the first team at Molde.
He scored on his debut in the Norwegian Cup and then a couple of months later he made his first league appearance.
He was booked within a minute after coming off the bench but just six minutes later he had bagged the winner. Talk about making an entrance.
After another decisive strike against Viking later that year, he celebrated in front of opposing fans — earning himself a public ticking off from a team-mate.
The goals continued to come and in July 2018, he scored four inside the first 21 minutes of a game against league leaders SK Brann. Solskjaer admitted the youngster was already attracting interest.
Having been born in Leeds while his midfielder dad played for them, Haaland once revealed his dream was to win the Premier League with the Yorkshire side.

But despite some advances from Elland Road, his next move was to Red Bull Salzburg — joining up with them at the end of 2018.
It was during the first half of the 2019-20 season when he really rose to fame, scoring 28 goals in 22 appearances for Salzburg — including five hat-tricks — earning him a January move to Borussia Dortmund.
He also became the first teenager to score in his first four Champions League matches, including one in a thriller against Liverpool at Anfield.
Early in 2020 he shunned  interest from United and Juventus to make the move to Dortmund.
He made his debut on January 18 last year and scored a hat-trick within 23 minutes of coming off the bench in a 5-3 win over Augsburg.
Two more goals in each of his next two matches made it seven in three games — and he won the league’s player of the month award despite only being on the pitch for a couple of hours.
The goals have continued to flow, with 33 in 31 games for Dortmund this term.
Of course City fans will never forget Aguero — how could they? But here is a guy who could at least help them move on.
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CHRIS WILDER will be Burnley’s No 1 choice as manager should Sean Dyche move to Crystal Palace this year.Dyche is the Premier League’s longest-serving boss, having joined the Clarets in October 2012.
Chris Wilder could make a swift return to Premier League football with BurnleyCredit: PA
Sean Dyche has been linked with a Burnley exit – with Crystal Palace interestedCredit: EPA
But there is a growing belief that despite new owners at Turf Moor, he would consider moving on.
Wilder, 53, took Sheffield United from League One to the Prem in three seasons and is the main man for chairman Alan Pace.
And Dyche, 49, is very much on the radar of Palace chief Steve Parish.
Current Selhurst Park boss Roy Hodgson, 73, is only under contract until the end of the season.
Wilder was axed by Sheffield United earlier this month following a breakdown in his relationship with the Blades’ ownership.
Given his achievements at the Yorkshire club, however, his stock remains fairly high.
The former Northampton and Oxford boss took over a mid-table League One side when he succeeded Nigel Adkins in 2016.
A period of immense success followed, culminating in last season’s ninth place finish.
Roy Hodgson’s Palace sit comfortably in mid-tableCredit: Rex
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This campaign was a different story, unfortunately, with the Blades languishing at the bottom of the table.
Palace, meanwhile, are comfortably in mid-table, sitting 12th with 37 points.
Burnley under Dyche find themselves four points and three places below Hodgson’s men – but should be fairly confident of survival.
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THE leading foreign scorer in Premier League history — and the leading goalscorer in Manchester City’s rich  history too.The scorer of the most famous goal of the Premier League era — and, in many ways, the greatest modern footballer we never really knew.
Sergio Aguero’s reign of terror at Man City will come to an end this summerCredit: AFP or licensors
For a decade now, Aguero has been City’s silent assassin — a man who has dodged the limelight as surely as he has evaded defences — and now his reign of terror is over.
The Argentinian’s likeness will be cast in bronze outside the Etihad and, perhaps, he will be depicted ripping off his shirt in ecstasy in celebration of the 94th-minute winner against QPR which won City their first title in 44 years.
Maybe they should accompany it with a voice recording of Martin Tyler’s famous ‘Agueroooooooo!’ goalgasm, playing for eternity.
Because although that goal came at the climax of Aguero’s first season in English football, and even though he will surely sign off his stay at City with a fifth title in a decade, that sun-kissed afternoon in May 2012 is what we will  remember him for.
City went into stoppage-time 2-1 down to a ten-man, relegation-threatened  Rangers, needing a victory to finish above Manchester  United, their crosstown- rivals, age-old nemeses, who had assured victory at Sunderland.
It seemed that City, for all their bottomless Abu Dhabi wealth, were still the same old City — a comedy club, always finding ways to stuff things up and snatch disaster from the jaws of victory.
Yet Edin Dzeko equalised in the 91st minute and then after Vincent Kompany strode forward, a prostrate Mario Balotelli hooked a pass to Aguero, who passed a grounded Nedum Onuoha to slot home and send the blue half of  Manchester into rapture.
And nobody laughed at City ever again.
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Aguero is the scorer of the Premier League’s most famous goalCredit: Getty Images – Getty

Of course, this being City, they had benefited from one of their own, Joey Barton, suffering the mother of all meltdowns and receiving a red card for kicking Aguero in the back, among a series of other assaults.
And Onuoha, the most culpable QPR defender, was another City academy product. Yet that was all part of a perfectly-scripted City story.
Aguero, in a rare interview, later claimed that he had done little on that fateful afternoon except for ‘scratching my b***s and getting kicked in the back’ and even claimed he had fluked his winning goal.
Never mind, the balance of power in Manchester — and in English football — shifted decisively in that moment. On the back of his shirt Aguero wears the name ‘Kun’, his nickname, after an Argentinian cartoon character.
And this most extraordinary climax to a Premier League season was as chaotic as an episode of Tom & Jerry.
Aguero is the last surviving  member of City’s first Premier League-winning side — his fellow greats Kompany and David Silva have departed in the previous two summers and both will soon stand, statuesque, alongside him.
Aguero delivered City their first title and three more after thatCredit: Times Newspapers Ltd
Pep Guardiola will struggle to replace a player of Aguero’s quality and standingCredit: PA:Empics Sport
It is hoped fans will return for their final home game against  Everton to give Aguero the send-off that Silva was never afforded.
We suspected this moment had been coming, with the 32-year-old Aguero’s contract due to expire at the end of the season and with the Argentine having failed to score a Premier League goal from open play in over a year.
Boss Pep Guardiola, who arrived slap-bang in the middle of Aguero’s ten-year stay, has often thrived in the biggest matches with a false nine or two, rather than Aguero’s long-term understudy, Gabriel Jesus.
Indeed, Guardiola’s arrival had  initially seemed to threaten Aguero’s future at City.
Before the Catalan swept in, he had been an old-school out-and-out poacher of goals.
The former Barcelona boss, with his ‘total football’ heritage, demanded more than that of his centre-forward.
Aguero responded to the challenge and, to some extent, re-invented  himself, as a more complete player. Aguero has scored an extraordinary 257 goals in 384 games for City — including a Premier League record of 12 hat-tricks.

In the competition’s all-time scoring charts, Aguero stands fourth, behind only Toon legend Alan Shearer, England’s record goalscorer  Wayne Rooney and Andy Cole, having  surpassed Top Gunner Thierry Henry as the most prolific overseas scorer in the English game.
But perhaps he was even under- appreciated in some quarters — as he was incredibly never named Football Writers’ Player of the Year, or PFA Player of the year.
He is not just a great goalscorer, though, but also a scorer of great goals — winning the Premier League’s goal of the month prize on seven occasions. Aguero has won ten major trophies with City and may sign off with four more as Guardiola’s men chase an unprecedented quadruple.
City may replace him with Erling Haaland, or perhaps even Harry Kane.
But even those world-class strikers would struggle to score as many goals for City as Aguero has done.
And they will surely never score a goal as heart-stopping, as historic or as significant as the one Aguero stuck past Paddy Kenny on that May afternoon a decade ago.
As Tyler said, after he’d caught his breath: “I swear you’ll never see anything like this ever again.” 
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LIVERPOOL are in pole position to land RB Leipzig defender Ibrahima Konate for £33million.A number of European clubs have been watching the French centre-back, 21.
Liverpool lead the race for RB Leipzig star Ibrahima KonateCredit: Getty
But the Premier League champions are the only ones prepared to meet his buy-out clause.
Liverpool have drawn up a five-man list for potential central defenders this summer.
And this includes Ozan Kabak, 21, who joined on loan from Schalke in January.
The Reds have an option to buy him for £18m – with add-on clauses.
But they do not need to activate it until June.
Liverpool need to strengthen in central defender after a horrendous season of injuries.
Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez and Joel Matip have all been long-term absentees this term.
Konate, 21, was on the bench for Leipzig in both Champions League games against Liverpool.
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He is currently part of the France squad at the European U21 Championship.
He did not play in the 1-0 defeat by Denmark but started in the 2-0 victory over Russia.
Konate’s defensive partner Dayot Upamecano is also on his way, having agreed to join Bayern Munich this summer.
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