The City skipper looked somewhere near his best during a commanding display but warned the job is only half-done with the second leg still to come in three weeks’ time.
“It was a great result, especially away from home and we couldn’t have hoped for better,” said the Belgian.
“The performance was good, there was a lot of high pressing, we created a lot of chances and 3-1 is a good result – but we need to make sure we don’t get too carried away with it.
“It was the sort of City performance we enjoy and we would like to see more often between now and the end of the season - we will take a lot of positives out of the game and it’s a good start to a big week for us.
“It’s the first time at this stage of the Champions League that we’re going into the second leg with a good chance of going through – that’s never been the case before – but we need to improve year on, year out.
“We may not have been drawn against Barcelona in this round, but this game was always going to be tough and we handled it with a lot of maturity and looked like a side who were hungry for success.
“We didn’t play it safe looking for a draw or a 1-0 win and tried to kill the tie off tonight.”
And after only his second game since returning from injury, he was keen to share the praise for a solid defensive display, adding: “It’s always easy to be a leader on the pitch when everybody does their job as they did in this match – every game is a priority from now to the end of the season and we want to do as well as we can in this competition and try and win the Capital One Cup and the Premier League as well.”
