Sergio Aguero and 8 Amazing Premier League Debuts

When Sergio Aguero came off the bench to score two goals and set up one more in Manchester City's 4-0 win over Swansea City last Monday, the whole Premier League sat up and took notice.

While his half-hour cameo came against a newly-promoted side that had just conceded a demoralising first goal after an hour's admirable resistance, it was nevertheless an arresting sight to see City's £38-million star signing instantly deliver.

Talk of it being the greatest Premier League debut ever may be a little excessive, but if the Argentinian striker can maintain anything like this form throughout the season, then that match will be looked back on as a major statement of intent.

Kun's spectacular bow follows in a long line of players who have either rocked up and immediately justified the hype surrounding them or went from being no-marks to the name on everybody's lips in the space of 90 minutes.

Fabrizio Ravanelli (Middlesbrough 3-3 Liverpool, August 17 1996)

It speaks volumes for the rising status of the Premier League in the mid-90s that, after scoring for Juventus in a Champions League final, Ravanelli would decide that Middlesbrough would be the best place to move and advance his career. 

Perhaps the wages on offers that also tempted the likes of Juninho and Emerson to join the previously-unfashionable club convinced the Italian striker to make the move to the Riverside Stadium just months after lifting the European Cup.

Whatever his motivations were for swapping Turin for Teesside, the man nicknamed Il Penna Bianca (The White Feather) due to his prematurely whitening hair, had a debut to remember.

Three times Liverpool took the lead and three times Ravanelli responded, first from the penalty spot, then a close-range finish and finally a predatory shot on the turn from inside the box.

Ravanelli scored 31 goals in all competitions for Boro in his first and only season at the club, which also saw runs to the finals of both the League Cup and FA Cup.

However, his 16 goals in 34 Premier League appearances were not enough to save the club from relegation, and he made his way to Marseilles as the stars quickly began to desert the club.  

Alan Shearer (Crystal Palace 3-3 Blackburn Rovers, August 15 1992)

The old saying "start as you mean to go on" could barely be more suitable than when applied to Alan Shearer's Premier League career.

Shearer had already enjoyed one incredible debut, scoring a hat trick in a 4-2 win over Arsenal in his first start for Southampton at the tender age of 17. 

His scoring form at The Dell eventually led to his £3.3-million move to Ewood Park—a British transfer record at the time—and he began life in the newly-formed Premier League in emphatic fashion. 

Rovers travelled to Selhurst Park to face Crystal Palace on the opening day, and the two sides played out a cracking match in which Palace led twice.

Shearer scored the second equaliser and then fired his new club into the lead, only for Simon Osborn to level for the hosts in the 90th minute.

Those two goals were the first of an incredible 260 that Shearer would go on to score over the ensuing 14 years for Blackburn and hometown club Newcastle United.

That's 73 ahead of Andy Cole, who is second on the Premier League's all-time scoring list.

James Vaughan (Everton 4-0 Crystal Palace, April 10 2005)

He may have turned 23 this summer, but so far the best day of Vaughan's professional career has arguably been his first game ever.

At the age of just 16 years and 271 days old, the Everton youth product came off the bench with 15 minutes remaining to score the final goal in a 4-0 win over Crystal Palace, who were en route to being relegated straight back down to The Championship.

In doing so, Vaughan became the youngest-ever goal scorer in the Premier League, beating James Milner's record by almost three months.

He also claimed the record back for Everton, having previously held it before Milner for Wayne Rooney's incredible late-winner against Arsenal in 2002, which announced his arrival.

Vaughan has spent the last six years largely struggling for fitness and form, suffering some serious injuries, interspersing loan moves to Derby County, Leicester City and, ironically, Palace.

However, this summer Paul Lambert spent £2.5 million on bringing Vaughan to newly-promoted Norwich City.

If he can put his injury problems behind him and fulfil his undoubted early promise then his record-breaking debut can yet become an anecdotal aside to his career, rather than the thing which defines it.

Jurgen Klinsmann (Sheffield Wednesday 3-4 Tottenham Hotspur, August 20 1994)

The Germany international was a surprise signing by Spurs in the summer of 1994—and also a controversial one.

Few English football fans were paid-up members of the Klinsmann's fan club after the national team were eliminated by the Germans in the semifinals of the 1990 World Cup, and the sense of injustice brought on by that penalty-shootout defeat was only exacerbated by the striker's "theatrical" way of being fouled in the final against Argentina.

But the former Stuttgart and Inter Milan goal machine did not take long to win round viewers of the Premier League following his £2-million move from Monaco. In fact, he did so in his first match.

Klinsmann had already had a hand in both goals, which put Spurs up 2-0 at Hillsborough, and with the game poised at 3-2 he leapt with great agility to head Darren Anderton's cross past Kevin Pressman. 

Klinsmann used his celebration to make fun of his reputation by diving on to the pitch and sliding on his chest along the turf.

His new teammates copied his antics, and a craze was born. 

Although his first spell at Spurs only lasted a season, Klinsmann scored 21 Premier League goals and won the Football Writer's Footballer of the Year award before returning to his native Germany with Bayern Munich

Alan Smith (Liverpool 1-3 Leeds United, November 14 1998)

Younger readers may be unaware that Newcastle's rather average defensive midfielder was actually once a promising young centre-forward, whom many had pegged as the future of the England attack.

Smith's status as such an exciting prospect for club and country was forged when David O'Leary—only in his second month in charge of Leeds—threw the 18-year-old on with a quarter of an hour left at Anfield, with Robbie Fowler putting the hosts ahead not long beforehand.

The debutant was on the pitch for three minutes before he got his first touch, but it was worth the wait.

David Hopkin's blocked shot rebounded into the youngster's path, and he coolly side-footed a clinical finish past David James. Leeds went on to win the match. 

Smith soon established himself as a first-team regular for his hometown club and remained so all the way through the whirlwind times that saw the club become big-spending title contenders and Champions League semifinalists before its financial implosion led to relegation in 2004.

When that happened, Smith did the one thing he swore he would never do and joined Leeds' cross-Pennine nemesis Manchester United, and his conversion into a midfielder under Alex Ferguson began.

Robbie Keane (Coventry City 2-0 Derby County, August 21 1999)

There can be few players in British football who have racked up as many millions of pounds in combined transfer fees as the Republic or Ireland's record goal-scorer.

Keane's recent move to L.A. Galaxy has taken the total spending on the striker to £73.8 million.

The first of the six clubs to pay big money for the Wolverhampton Wanderers trainee was Coventry City, who gave £6 million to their Midlands rivals for one of the most highly-rated young talents in the game at the time.

Keane proved himself a canny addition right away, scoring both goals in a 2-0 win at Highfield Road against another Midlands side, Derby County.

In all, the teenager scored a dozen league goals in his first season in the top flight, and that was enough for Inter Milan to make a huge £13-million bid for Keane, an offer Coventry simply couldn't refuse. 

Danny Rose (Tottenham Hotspur 2-1 Arsenal, April 14 2010)

England Under-21 winger Rose had a few FA and League Cup appearances for Tottenham's first team under his belt before he was drafted into the side for this most crucial of London derbies, as well as a couple of dozen games from loan spells at Watford, Peterborough and Bristol City.

Still, his injury-enforced selection in the starting lineup against the Gunners left many nonplussed, especially considering Spurs were embarking on an end-of-season run which also took in games against Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City as they chased a place in the Champions League.

Tottenham fans need not have worried, however.

Just 10 minutes into the game at White Hart Lane, Arsenal keeper Manuel Almunia palmed a corner out of the area and it fell to Rose.

The Leeds trainee watched the ball drop all the way and met it with as sweet a left-footed volley as you could hope to hit, and it went flying back past Almunia and into the net.

Tottenham went on to seal their first league win over Arsenal in a decade and qualify for the Champions League. 

Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United 4-0 Bolton Wanderers, August 16 2003)

He may not have scored on his Premier League debut, but the precocious Portuguese teenager showed enough dazzling pace and skill in just 25 minutes to leave United fans drooling at the prospect of what their new £12.5-million signing would bring to the club.

Upon replacing Nicky Butt, the big-money summer signing from Sporting Lisbon ran Bolton ragged, beating one player after another with ease as he popped up on either flank and surged through the centre of the pitch.

He drew a penalty from Kevin Nolan as the Bolton captain could only desperately tug at his shirt.

Ruud van Nistelrooy had his resulting spot-kick saved, but Ronaldo had a hand in making sure he atoned for that miss by crossing for Paul Scholes to tee up the Dutch striker soon afterwards.

Only months earlier the Old Trafford faithful had applauded the original Ronaldo off the pitch following the striker's stunning hat-trick for Real Madrid in a Champions League tie.

However, after this showing from the Brazil striker's namesake, United's supporters were left chanting "there's only one Ronaldo."

The new Ronaldo left the field to a glorious ovation of his own.

Six years, 117 goals and one World Player of the Year award later, he left for Real Madrid for a world-record £80 million.