Manchester City 5 CSKA Moscow 2

Manchester City have endured so many difficult moments in the Champions League they will cherish the fact they have finally qualified for the knockout stages with something to spare. A club with City’s ambitions will still want considerably more but this will be the first time they have remained in this competition beyond Christmas and, at the very least, it represents a clear sign of improvement.

True, Manuel Pellegrini’s team were guilty of carelessness at times, but not stemming from the kind of anxiety that has held them back over the last couple of seasons. Their faults originated merely from the complacency that can follow after three goals inside the opening half an hour and a fourth five minutes into the second half.

They have accumulated 15 goals now in their last three home matches, culminating in Álvaro Negredo scoring his third of the night in stoppage time. Sergio Agüero had managed the first two and even though City took their foot off the gas sufficiently to allow Seydou Doumbia, CSKA’s Ivory Coast international striker, to score a couple of his own, on both occasions the Russian side were three goals behind, bamboozled by the speed and incisiveness of the home side’s attacking.

Group D has still brought its occasional traumas. Bayern Munich dismantled them on this ground a month ago, on a night when Pellegrini’s team demonstrated all the tell-tale signs of an inferiority complex. Yet CSKA and Viktoria Plzen have been obliging opponents and the only slightly negative aspect here was the sense, perhaps, that Pellegrini still has a difficult issue to deal with in terms of his goalkeepers. For all their attacking enterprise, Pellegrini will have noted a couple of moments when Costel Pantilimon looked a touch vulnerable.

That, however, was very much a side issue on a night when Pellegrini’s cosmopolitan team, again featuring no Englishmen in the starting XI, quickly set about showing the imbalance of quality between the sides. Agüero, in devastating form over the last month, was instrumental to it, and has now gone above Francis Lee as City’s leading scorer in European competition, with 12 goals. Even ignoring, for one moment, the expertise with which he took his goals, the nutmeg on CSKA’s right-back, Kirill Nababkin, late in the first half was a joy. His pass for Negredo’s goal, picking out the Spaniard at the far post, was not too shabby either.

Agüero has made a habit of creating goals for his team-mates recently, a provider and finisher playing at the point of maximum expression.

Samir Nasri, a renascent figure this season, also shone. One jinking run in the penalty area featured at least two drag-backs and the kind of confidence that was seen too infrequently last season. David Silva, such an elusive opponent, was prominently involved from the start, coaxing the challenge from Zoran Tosic that won the early penalty. Fernandinho was culpable of a mistake in the buildup to Doumbia’s goal but City, for the most part, had control of midfield. The goal felt like an irritation rather than a serious threat to their night.

Agüero’s penalty was elegantly taken, high into the top left hand corner of Igor Akinfeev’s goal, but it was his second strike that really epitomised his confidence, latching on to Nasri’s pass and turning the nearest opponent, Aleksei Berezutski, in one movement. The side-footed finish went diagonally, left to right, across CSKA’s goalkeeper and picked out the bottom corner.

When he picked out Negredo for 3-0 it was tempting to wonder whether CSKA might suffer the kind of ordeal that was inflicted upon Norwich City at the weekend. Instead, Fernandinho missed a challenge in midfield and suddenly Doumbia was running clear. Pantilimon perhaps went down a touch too early and the striker nipped round him before turning the ball into the empty net.

In the last couple of seasons, that might have been a moment to bring some anxiety to the team. Instead, City quickly re-asserted their authority. Five minutes into the second half, Yaya Touré dinked a little chip into the penalty area. CSKA’s defence did not react, hoping for an offside flag, and Nasri waited for the ball to drop then unselfishly turned it into Negredo’s path to earn another appreciative rendition of the old Shaun Goater song, albeit modified to “feed the Beast and he will score.”

The pace dropped after that goal, with any faint hope of a CSKA comeback now extinguished. Fernandinho had gone off at half-time, replaced by James Milner, which at least meant Roy Hodgson’s scouts did not have an entirely wasted trip. Silva was also removed to preserve his legs.

City continued to hog possession but their passing was no longer so sharp and penetrative. Pleasingly for Pellegrini, Pantilimon’s handling of the ball also improved after his erratic first half.

Negredo almost finished his hat-trick in spectacular fashion, volleying over after a lovely turn had taken out two defenders, and Doumbia’s second goal, like the first, came out of nothing, with Gaël Clichy culpable of a clumsy challenge to give him the chance to score with a penalty.

But Negredo’s was the final contribution, heading in Milner’s cross, and City can relax going into their final two group games.