City hit Arsenal for six

Manchester City will be without Sergio Aguero for the Christmas and New Year period after their top scorer suffered a calf injury in Saturday's 6-3 win over Arsenal.

Manager Manuel Pellegrini, whose side are preparing for a run of six games in three weeks, confirmed the striker will be out for a month.

"I think he will be, at least, one month out," the City boss said. "He has a calf injury. Maybe the doctor can say exactly how many weeks he will be."

Aguero opened the scoring against Premier League leaders Arsenal with his 18th goal in his last 16 club games but went off in the 50th minute.

Top Tens: Sporting Gimmicks Sudden death shootouts - in Rugby? © Getty Images From PowerPlay and super-duper tie-breaks to shot clocks and shootouts, ESPN's Alex Perry considers some of sport's daftest ideas best left to history books and pub quiz questions.

Check out our top ten bizarre sporting gimmicks

However, City should soon have Stevan Jovetic back. The Montenegro international forward, who joined from Fiorentina in the summer, has only started three games but is back in training after a calf injury.

Besides Aguero, Alvaro Negredo, David Silva, Fernandinho and Yaya Toure also scored in the rout of the league leaders.

And Pellegrini added: "Yaya, Samir [Nasri] and David all played very well, too. The four in the midfield are very difficult to play against. The strikers can score a lot of goals with them behind them."

He singled out Fernandinho for praise while explaining why City spent £30 million on the Brazilian.

"Important players aren't cheap," the manager said. "When we bought Fernandinho, we were absolutely sure he was a top player. I saw him many times in the Champions League.

"He is a typical Brazilian midfielder, he plays very well with the ball, he has a lot of pace and he gets forward well. He's doing very good work with Yaya Toure and I'm very happy for him."

Download ESPN's new UK sport app, a fresh and powerful new way to follow your favourite UK sports news, scores and video.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd