Manchester City face an anxious wait to discover the severity of Sergio Aguero’s hamstring injury, with no prognosis expected until this afternoon at the earliest.

The delay is due to the club’s medical department wanting to wait for the swelling to go down before conducting a full examination of the player’s hamstring.

Aguero suffered the problem a little after scoring a 71st-minute penalty in City’s 3-0 win over Stoke City on New Year’s Day. The striker was unchallenged as he pulled up in pain when running with the ball.

Aguero will miss Saturday’s FA Cup third round tie against Watford and could also be unavailable for the league game at Arsenal on Sunday week. If so this would represent a sizeable blow to Roberto Mancini as the Argentinian’s 10 goals make him the club’s joint top scorer, alongside Edin Dzeko.

City’s struggle to score prolifically this season has been a major factor in the champions trailing Manchester United by seven points, but with seven goals in their previous two league outings things had improved lately.