It is faintly ridiculous to suggest that a team that had scored 45 league goals in 15 matches has a problem in attack but the fact is Manchester City’s defeat away to Chelsea highlighted one thing: they need Sergio Aguero.

With Kevin De Bruyne injured there has been a discussion this season as to which player is the most important to the Premier League champions.

The current conclusion has been Fernandinho, given the Brazilian’s unique role and that there is not a similar under-study should he, at 33, suffer an injury. Maybe it is David Silva but, for all the Spaniard’s brilliance, and the fact that City are a better, slicker side with him, there are reliable options.

But at centre-forward? Right now the injured Aguero is clearly irreplaceable and not least because Gabriel Jesus is struggling to such an extent that Pep Guardiola deemed that he would start away to Chelsea with Raheem Sterling through the middle, although he later switched that to deploy Riyad Mahrez there.

Sterling did not play badly although Mahrez and, on the other flank, Leroy Sane did. It is hard to envisage that had one or two of the chances that City spurned in a first 44 minutes of such utter dominance that they appeared to be on a different level, or two, to Chelsea had fallen to Aguero they would not have been taken.