Sergio Aguero once again proved his importance to Manchester City as his brace salvaged a point for the champions against Queens Park Rangers on Saturday evening.

The Premier League top-scorer took his tally to 12, but was unable to prevent his side dropping points in an entertaining 2-2 draw at Loftus Road, where the visitors had to come from behind twice.

Charlie Austin had the ball in the back of the net twice within a matter of seconds inside the opening eight minutes, only to be denied by the officials on both occasions.

First, his header was correctly ruled out for offside, then he had another effort controversially disallowed after Joe Hart had mis-hit the resulting free-kick by touching the ball twice before it left the area.

Austin was again denied by a superb stop from the City keeper before finally breaking the deadlock with his sixth goal of the season in the 21st minute when his shot found the bottom right-hand corner.

The lead though lasted for a little over 10 minutes as the other in-form striker on the pitch equalised for the visitors with a goal out of nothing, albeit with a hint of controversy.

Aguero survived an offside shout and a strong handball claim before turning inside Steven Caulker to fire home his 11th league goal of the campaign after superbly controlling a long ball from Eliaquim Mangala.

QPR goalkeeper Rob Green was livid as he protested to the officials.

Late in the second half, Martin Demichelis, under pressure from Bobby Zamora, put through his own net to restore QPR’s lead.

But with less than 10 minutes to go, Aguero came to the rescue as he rounded Green to level the game despite the best efforts of three defenders on the line.

City were unable to force a winner in the closing stages. They fell eight points behind league leaders Chelsea but Manuel Pellegrini refused to be drawn on the gap and also praised the red-hot Argentinian striker: “At this moment, he’s (Aguero) a very important player for us. I always say that Sergio is a top player in the world.

“I don’t think about Chelsea, I think about our team to recover. We have a lot of time, we have to play 27 games more, and the championship is very long.”