Pep Guardiola said Sergio Aguero's legendary status had grown again after becoming the Premier League's top scoring foreign player with a hat-trick as Manchester City thrashed Aston Villa 6-1 on Sunday, reports AFP.
It may be too late to salvage City's defence of the Premier League title as they remain 14 points behind runaway leaders Liverpool, who also have a game in hand, but led by Aguero the champions moved ahead of Leicester into second to show they will not give up the chase.
Aguero eclipsed Thierry Henry's record as the top scoring non-English player in the Premier League by taking his tally to 177 goals and also surpassed Alan Shearer's league record for hat-tricks with his 12th since joining City from Atletico Madrid in 2011. "He was a legend and the legend rises tonight," said Guardiola. "He is one of the most incredible players I've seen in this league. "To score this amount of goals and hat-tricks means you have done for many, many years a lot of good things.
"You have to be consistent for many years so it's an incredible compliment to him."
"I'm so happy for the record. It is thanks to my teammates, they help me in these nine years," said Aguero.
"When I scored the second, I thought one more (and) I break the hat-trick record. I want to keep scoring more goals."