Second half goals from Elano and Shaun Wright-Phillips eased City’s passage into Tuesday’s draw for the group stage but it took some words from the Manager to kick-start his team.
He told us afterwards: “I just made the point that maybe we needed to up the tempo and run around a little bit more, so that was the key to the half time message, and thankfully they did!
“I felt the tempo of our play wasn’t quite at the right level in the first half to shift them around. We talked before the game about spreading the play quickly and creating space to get our good players in key positions.
“We didn’t really do that to any great extent in the first half. Second half though I felt we were a lot better in that respect and we fed the full backs and created more space for the likes of Robinho and Shaun Wright-Phillips to get on the ball and cause problems for them.”
