onome710: Two of world football's finest strikers go head-to-head at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday as Manuel Pellegrini's champions welcome Jose Mourinho's chief contenders

English football loses its superstars. Or so it seems, anyway, amid the talent drain to Spain. Yet on Sunday, two goal machines meet, beginning a duel for Premier League glory, the Golden Boot and perhaps even the unofficial title of the world's best centre forward.

Luis Suarez, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Robert Lewandowski and the Manchester United pair of Robin van Persie and Radamel Falcao are contenders but two of the prime candidates are Diego Costa and Sergio Aguero. The Chelsea target man has made statistically the best start to a Premier League career, with seven goals in four games. The Manchester City poacher has the lowest minutes-per-goal ratio of anyone in the division's history who has struck 30 times or more: he goes just 114 minutes between strikes on average.


The predators leading the line at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday are strikers with similarities and not just because both endured a World Cup to forget and were used as substitutes in the Champions League on Wednesday.

While other elite players quit England for Spain, this pair made the opposite journey. Indeed, they proved prolific for the same club, Atletico Madrid. The Estadio Vicente Calderon is a place where goalscorers flourished - Falcao, Diego Forlan and Fernando Torres all enhanced their reputations as Atleti players – and it is also ideal scouting ground for English clubs.

The rivalry in the Spanish capital makes it very hard for Real Madrid to sign directly from their neighbours so, if Barcelona do not buy their prize assets, the opportunity is there for the Premier League clubs. Chelsea seized it this summer, just as City did three years earlier.

Even if Atletico's British brand of football, their willingness to play 4-4-2 and go direct, their hustling, bustling style and hugely energetic, ultra-committed approach offered signs that Costa would succeed in England, his first four fixtures have still been remarkable.

He has been an injury doubt for the last two league matches. In that time, he scored twice against Everton and a hat-trick against a Swansea City defence previously only breached once. The doubters wondered if he would be a one-season wonder, if his magnificent 36-goal campaign for Atletico would be an outlier and he would never prove as potent again. They are being answered. Chelsea are being transformed.

Eden Hazard was the Blues' leading scorer in the league last season with 14 goals. With only a 10th of the season gone, Costa is already half way to equalling that tally. Sunday represents his toughest test to date, against the outstanding defender in England, Vincent Kompany, but it is hard to imagine a man who scored a winner in a Madrid derby at the Santiago Bernabeu last season being cowed.

He has made an immediate impact. The quicksilver Aguero made one, too, the last time that a title rival visited the Etihad Stadium. He scored 23 seconds after coming on against Liverpool. A clinical finish against Arsenal on Saturday brought contrasts with a less reliable finisher, Danny Welbeck, who had spurned a chance at the other end.

And a recurring theme of Aguero's City career is that he is often at his best in such fixtures. He is a derby specialist, with five goals against Manchester United already. He has struck three times each against Arsenal and Liverpool. Chelsea, who have only conceded twice to him, have escaped comparatively unscathed. That could change. 

Yet he is somehow underappreciated. Perhaps it is because of the injuries that have interrupted his last two seasons and prevented him from topping the scoring charts. When he embarked on a run of 25 goals in 23 games between September 2013 and January 2014, he threatened to overshadow Luis Suarez. Manuel Pellegrini was describing Aguero as the world's third-best player, behind only Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. If that seemed hyperbolic to outsiders, the Argentine guaranteed immortality in the blue half of Manchester with the final touch of his debut season, the ice-cool, injury-time, title-winning strike against QPR. He was the ideal man to take the opportunity.

The chances are that Chelsea would back Costa to score in a similar situation. He is not as quicksilver as Aguero but brings an added physical dimension. In some ways, they are reflections of their managers, the snarling Costa sharing Mourinho's fondness for goading opponents and the more smiling Aguero possessing Pellegrini's less abrasive approach.

But now they are pitted in direct competition. Because while Aguero is the forward who, per minute on the pitch, is more potent than Thierry Henry and Alan Shearer, Robbie Fowler and Ruud van Nistelrooy, Van Persie, Suarez, Daniel Sturridge and Michael Owen, Costa is his newest challenger. Thus far, he averages a goal every 47 minutes. When he scores enough to qualify for a place among the Premier League's striking greats, he might be a new entry at No.1.

Mancity26:
u dey ask who won hold costa? Almighty kompany is dia....Aguero all d way

femi4: RIP English

femi4: RIP English

sinokingz: why u won show ur self itz just a lil mistake

keypad1: my brother God bless you. Na typo. I was in a hurry to type lose and wrongly type lost.

ayusco85: Man City should end chelseas 100% start to the season. they are becoming too arrogant for my liking. Aguero all the way

ginajet: #Teambluez! TeamChelsea TeamCosta....... Costa biscuits...... roller costa.... beast.... goal machine...... Worldbest....... unstoppable..... Da rock.... you name it, its Costa all the way baby

incredibleone: The prob is who wanna hold hazard!!!!!! Absolutely no one in epl,even lahm and martinez chop grass tire in d super cup.....he wants to beat u? He does easily........zabaleta better pretend he has Ebola!

Emisco1: he dun drible zabaleta o..he kary am sitdwn 4 ground.he drible am tru hm bk..nt even facing zabaleta..i got dt video

Tundez97: Dis diego costa hyping is to much, rooney no score 8goals in 4matches #neutralteam

Tundez97: Dis diego costa hyping is to much, rooney no score 8goals in 4matches #neutralteam

Buoyantic: c diz fish head what do you know about football?

lovemaths: Sergio Kun Aguero all the way. :-b

keypad1: costa juju has failed.....chelshit will lost tomorrow.


Team aguero

Buoyantic: c diz fish head what do you know about football?

makkitush: what is wrong with u.why the insult. What has she done wrong,if u like u type your own eeh you FOOL.

Buoyantic: bald headed monkey what's your business?

ayusco85: Man City should end chelseas 100% start to the season. they are becoming too arrogant for my liking. Aguero all the way