Sergio Aguero made headlines on his return to first-team football during Manchester City’s 1-0 win against Arsenal.No, it wasn’t for scoring. It was for an incident involving assistant Sian Massey-Ellis.After Massey-Ellis awarded a throw to Arsenal, rather than Man City, Aguero questioned the decision and put his hand on her shoulder.It sparked a debate on social media questioning Aguero’s actions and whether or not it was acceptable behaviour.Sky Sports pundit and former City player, Micah Richards, insisted Aguero should know better."I just think he didn't mean to do it really," Richards said. "You've got to respect the officials. I think she deals with the situation really well. He'll know better than that.
"I don't think we need to go over the top on it. He knows not to be touching the officials, it doesn't look good."It's just not a good look. We don't need to do that, you start going down a road you don't want to go down - he should know better than that."
However, he was defended by his manager, Pep Guardiola, who said: "Sergio is the nicest person I ever met in my life. Look for problems in other situations not in this one."
But perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise to hear Guardiola defend his player. That’s because he once did something very similar when he was Bayern Munich manager with fourth official, Bibiana Steinhaus. Guardiola forced her to shake his hand before returning and putting his arm around her.
Steinhaus even had to remove Guardiola’s hand from her shoulder. In truth, Guardiola's actions were far worse than Aguero's and far more aggressive and patronising.
It was an incident journalist Tancredi Palmeri tweeted out, following up on his original tweet where he suggested Aguero should be banned for three matches.
Palmeri wrote: “This from Aguero is red card and 3 games ban. No discussions. By football law. An official can’t be grabbed, and even worse if it is in this patronising way. The fact the official in question is a woman makes the act even more distasteful.”
However, according to the Evening Standard, Aguero WON’T face any retrospective action. According to the report, “touching an official is not an offence and it is understood the PGMOL do not view Aguero’s action as aggressive or threatening.”