Sergio Aguero's Return Badly Needed by Injury-Ravaged Manchester City

Sergio Aguero could return to action for Manchester City as soon as Wednesday against Blackburn Rovers, per The Guardian.

The report indicated that, "Aguero returned to training this week after recovering from a calf injury that has ruled him out since the 6-3 Barclays Premier League win over Arsenal on December 14."

City have coped quite well in the Argentine's absence, reeling off seven wins and a draw out of eight matches in all competitions. Fortunately for City, five of those wins came in Premier League play.

Alvaro Negredo and Edin Dzeko achieved beyond reasonable expectations while Aguero was on the mend.

Both men scored in City's most recent 2-0 victory over Newcastle United at St James' Park, and they combined for five goals (with Negredo claiming the hat trick) in the 6-0 caning of West Ham United in the first leg of the Capital One Cup semi-final.

Unfortunately for City, the win over Newcastle came at a heavy price by way of injuries to Sky Blues stars.

Samir Nasri's injury, caused by a Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa cheap shot, is believed to be the worst. Nasri "had scans on his left knee on Monday morning amid conflicting reports over the severity of the Manchester City star's injury," wrote Chris Wheeler and Jack Gaughan of the Daily Mail.

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City also saw two other stars leave the St James' Park pitch early.

"Edin Dzeko, scorer of the City's opening goal, sustained a calf injury in the victory," according to BBC Sport. Dzeko was replaced in the 52nd minute of the Newcastle match by Jesus Navas.

And despite Yaya Toure's game efforts to play through an ankle injury, he also limped off the pitch against Newcastle. Javi Garcia came on for Toure in the 61st minute.

Nasri is almost certainly going to be out for some time; it might be an extended absence. In the short term, the availability of both Dzeko and Toure is in question.

City will look to quell the Blackburn Rovers' FA Cup revolt at midweek, followed by a Premier League encounter with Cardiff City at the Etihad three days later.

With Dzeko hurting and Stevan Jovetic still incredibly, mysteriously languishing in the physio's room, City need Aguero desperately. Especially when you consider that the fallback plan when Dzeko left the pitch against Newcastle was to deploy Nasri in an attacking role from his putative midfield position.

Of course, not every team can lose the second-leading goal scorer in the Premier League for a month and drop zero points in league play while he is gone. Remarkably, Aguero is still second in the league in goals scored, although Luis Suarez's lead over Aguero is practically unassailable.

As much as City crave Aguero's goals, though, what they really need from him now and for the foreseeable future is a sustained run of health. The Sky Blues accounted for Aguero's time off—now he must do what is needed.

With back-to-back league matches at Tottenham Hotspur and home to Chelsea looming, City need Aguero to return to goal-scoring form without further delay.