Samir Nasri Must Supply Manchester City's Goals While Injured Strikers Heal

Samir Nasri will need to shoulder a great deal of the scoring load for Manchester City in the absence of Sergio Aguero, Edin Dzeko and Stevan Jovetic.

David Mooney summarized the sorry state of striker affairs at City these days in a recent blog post for ESPNFC.com:

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After Edin Dzeko limped out of the warm-up (against Leicester City), the manager was left with no fit senior strikers. News on Sergio Aguero's knee ligament problem isn't very forthcoming, but the signs are that he's going to be unavailable for selection for at least six weeks or so. Meanwhile, the manager confirmed Stevan Jovetic and Dzeko will be out of action for a couple of weeks.

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Mooney's post trumpeted Scott Sinclair as a solution to manager Manuel Pellegrini's woes: "Step forward, Scott Sinclair."

With all due respect to Mooney, the chances that Pellegrini turns to Sinclair are even more remote than those of seeing long-buried Matija Nastasic supplant Eliaquim Mangala in the City XI.

Sinclair is a winger, not a striker. And Sinclair's level of rust at this point sails right past "he'll need a match or two to get up to speed" and heads straight to "out so long, he might accidentally handle the ball."

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Besides, in Nasri, City have a midfielder who has the talent and the current good form to reach back into his past and carry the offensive load for a spell.

Right, so 2010-11 was a long time ago. But Nasri did score 16 goals in all competitions for Arsenal that season, and if anything, he looked to be a player whose best offensive seasons were ahead of him.

In many ways, signing with City was both a boon and a bust for Nasri. It is fairly safe to suggest that Nasri would not have two Premier League title medals had he stayed a Gunner.

That said, there is no telling the damage Roberto Mancini did to Nasri's reputation—and his productivity—during the Italian's tenure. Maybe if Nasri had stayed at Arsenal, 16 goals could have become 25 or 30 in subsequent seasons.

All that is long over now, though. Nasri is a young 27-year-old (he has a June birthday), and at least theoretically he is still in his footballing prime. Questions about his health and Nasri's attitude aside, few City players have his talent. Fewer still who are healthy now.

City's ability (and proclivity) to stockpile assets is a major reason why Nasri has receded into a limited role at City in recent seasons. Is he supposed to feature in the offense ahead of Yaya Toure or David Silva? Is he supposed to score more goals than Aguero or Dzeko? No chance.

Times will come, though, where one or more of those marquee talents are unable to play, due to injury or in the case of Toure in the Champions League, outright stupidity. When that happens, City expect that the high-priced, high-profile athletes ordinarily pushed to the wings of the stage will step in ably for the injured and the suspended.

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Even with so many injuries to key City players, Nasri certainly will not need to score all of City's goals in the coming weeks alone. Toure scored 20 times in the Premier League last season, and Frank Lampard is currently chugging from the fountain of youth. Lampard now has as many league goals as Thierry Henry.

Nasri has not scored many goals in recent days, but the ones he has scored have been massive.

The Frenchman's missile against AS Roma last week all but clinched City's passage to the knockout round in the Champions League and a return date with Barcelona.

Nasri's last goal before that one? It put City up 1-0 over West Ham United in last season's Premier League title clincher.

Fortunately for City, the slate of matches ahead of them as their strikers heal is not particularly frightening: Home to Crystal Palace, at West Bromwich Albion, home to Burnley and home to Sunderland.

But City cannot win any of those matches without scoring. City have to find the missing goals from somewhere.

And if it's not going to be Sinclair, it might as well be Nasri.