City found themselves 3-2 behind and staring down the barrel of a home defeat against the Ligue 1 leaders – but a brilliant last 20 minutes saw them score three times to head into the second leg with a two-goal advantage.
Silva, who is revelling under Pep Guardiola’s stewardship, says it’s the kind of fighting spirit City need if they want to improve on last season’s semi-final place in Europe’s elite competition.
“We came from behind but we could win the game, which is the most important,” he said. “The strong mentality that we had shown is as important as the final result.
“City have been in Europe for a few years. Last year we reached the semi-finals. We have a very strong team, and there’s also some young players.
“All that we want is grow as a team, improve and go as far as we can in the Champions League. This kind of game will help us in this process.”
City will be wary of Monaco’s attacking quality ahead of the return game in three weeks’ time.
Leonardo Jardim’s side underlined their frightening ability going forward, with Radamel Falcao, Kylian Mbappe and Bernardo Silva all outstanding at the Etihad Stadium.
There has been criticism of City’s defending in the aftermath of the match but Silva is pleased with the performance and says the desire to continually attack their opponents leaves gaps in behind the back four.
“We know that we are a team that are always trying to attack and this kind of things - conceding three goals - can happen,” he said.
“Sometimes there are a lot of space behind our defenders. At the end we scored five goals and we had chances to score some more. It was a great performance.”
