Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero has been banned for four matches by the FA for his second charge of violent conduct in the Premier League this season. The 28-year-old saw a straight red card for a late challenge on David Luiz in Manchester City’s 3-1 home loss to Chelsea.
And given this is his second offence – with the first being the retrospective red card he saw for a challenge on West Ham United’s Winston Reid in August – he’s been banned for four games by the English FA and will miss matches against Champions Leicester City, London pair Watford and Arsenal as well as Hull City.
Aguero’s teammate Fernandinho was also sent off in the game for being a part of the mass brawl that took place following the Argentine’s challenge on Luiz. Fernandinho was caught on camera holding Cesc Fabregas by the throat and pushing him towards the advertising hoardings near the dugouts.
While it looks like Fabregas was the one who instigated the fight by slapping Fernandinho, the FA have confirmed that the Brazilian will miss Manchester City’s next three games. Pep Guardiola will also be without Nicolas Otamendi for their game against Leicester given he picked up his fifth yellow card of the season.
A host of Manchester City and Chelsea players were involved in the brawl after Aguero’s tackle but the home side seem to be the team that suffers the most from the rulings of the FA – as echoed by the Citizen defender John Stones.
"In those situations, you go in there and back your team-mates up, both teams do that," Stones told the BBC.
"I don't want to say too much and get in trouble for saying things but I think we have ended up on the bad side of what happened.
"I know Sergio's tackle was in no way good, but what happened after - when a few of their boys came in - I didn't think it was fairly balanced."
Chelsea’s Nathaniel Chalobah looked like the player who started off the mass brawl by pushing Aguero to the ground and that prompted a host of Manchester City players to come in and defend the Argentine. And while all this was happening, Luiz was receiving treatment and later ruled the challenge by Aguero down to plain old frustration.
"It is better when you talk about Aguero to talk about good things rather than bad things," he said.
"It is quite normal frustration when you don't win the game and I don't like to speak about negative things."
Manchester City currently sit in fourth place on the Premier League table four points behind the leaders Chelsea.
