Messi comes to rescue of apathetic Aguero as Argentina labour to win

By this point everyone is aware that despite the riches of talent available to Argentina coaches, consistent displays at the club level are not essential to make the cut. The presence of Sergio Romero and Marcos Rojo in Thursday's starting line-up demonstrated as much, as the intermittent Manchester United men took up positions at the back. 

The man in the spotlight, however, belongs to the sky blue half of Manchester. Sergio Aguero put in another joyless, apathetic shift for his nation as they stumbled to a 1-0 win over Chile, and the most pertinent question is just what he was doing there in the first place. 

Argentina's problem has been clear in international football for at least the last eight years. The defence is flimsy, Romero an occasionally inspired shot-stopper but vulnerable under the high ball, and the midfield short of invention unless Lionel Messi drops back to forage far from the danger zone. Five coaches have come and gone in that same period, all battling with the conundrum of how to fill that creative vacuum last effectively filled by Juan Roman Riquelme in 2009. 

To be fair to Aguero, he was simply the most prominent victim of a formation that even on paper looked ridiculous. Placing Aguero, Messi, Angel Di Maria and Gonzalo Higuain in the same team as a quartet may have made sense back in 2011, but each of those players has evolved since then. In 2017, and with absolutely no connection visible between defence and attack in a formation that at times looked most faithfully an unworkable 5-1-4, Argentina were left to eke out a result by any means necessary. 

That they did, thanks to Messi and the kind eye of referee Sandro Ricci. It says something of Argentina's malaise that the game-winning moment hinged on a long ball pinged forward by Mascherano, with Di Maria - still an infurating presence in Albiceleste colours, so willing to waste promising positions - left to do what he does best and hare after it.