Alvaro Negredo scored a hat trick and Sergio Aguero struck twice as Manchester City reached the Champions League knockout stages with a convincing 5-2 defeat of CSKA Moscow.
The result was never in doubt after Aguero scored a penalty in the third minute at the Etihad Stadium, and the in-form hosts were 3-0 up after half an hour.
Seydou Doumbia twice soured the scoreline with a goal on the stroke of half-time and a late penalty, but Manuel Pellegrini's men were not threatened and secured qualification for the first time with two games to spare.
Aguero's second after 20 minutes was his 13th of the season and Negredo then put City in complete control. He added his second soon after the break and completed his treble in the final minute. Following exits at the group stages in each of the past two seasons the result represented the next major step forward in City's development.
After the meeting between the two clubs in the Russian capital a fortnight ago was soured by racist chanting aimed at Yaya Toure, the crowd, who chanted the midfielder's name throughout, were in focus. Stewards acted quickly to remove a banner unfurled by City fans reading, 'Free Pussy Riot', referring to the members of the imprisoned members of the Russian protest band, and midway through the first half police and stewards also moved in among the CSKA supporters after what may have been a minor disturance and a smoke bomb was later let off.
Toure paid tribute after the match. "It's amazing," he said. "I think it's deserved by the club. We go through to the second round for the first time, it's unbelievable. I thought we played amazingly well today and we have to say thank you to the fans as well. They showed to the fans of CSKA how supportive our fans are."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article