We trailed Manchester United at half-time following Marcus Rashford’s early strike but two goals from Phil Foden and another from Erling Haaland secured a 3-1 victory.
The former City defender, who was a special guest on Matchday Live, said it would have been easy to have lost composure but the team stuck to our plans to claim an important three points.
“Take away the quality of the goals, the two things that stick out for me is discipline and belief in what they’re doing as a team,” Curle said.
“Because it’s a local derby, you can get caught up in the emotion of it, you’re desperate to go forward and you can take too many touches and you start going longer with your passes. They kept their belief, they kept their focus and they kept their discipline.
“Every team that comes to the Etihad will be taking pointers from other teams that have come here and stifled City and that will be the plan.
“But as soon as the door opens it’s very difficult for teams to change their tactics within games unless they change personnel, then that opens the game up and that’s what City need.”
Richard Dunne believes the players will have enjoyed the comeback which will give them fuel for the rest of the season.
Following Darwin Nunez’s injury time winner for Liverpool on Saturday, the former captain says they will have felt some pressure to get the win.
“The mood swing will have been massive,” Dunne said. “At half-time their professionalism gets them through.
WATCH FULL MATCH REPLAY OF MANCHESTER DERBY ON CITY+
“But the relief at the end when you’ve stuck to the gameplan and your beliefs and come out on the right side of a result like that, will be just amazing.
“It was a complete annihilation at times, they just couldn’t get the ball off City. There was just so much energy and enthusiasm just for football.
“It’s great for the confidence for the rest of the season after watching Liverpool score in the 99th minute and being down at half-time and it was important to win that game and go into next week full of confidence.”
Micheal Brown was pitchside with FG and said every player contributed to a huge victory going into next Sunday’s game at Liverpool.
“The domination was incredible but it was about getting the three points at the end of this game and that’s what they’ve got,” the ex-City midfielder added.
“It was all around the pitch, defensively, John Stones in the middle, Kyle Walker, Ederson, everybody and Phil Foden was unbelievable.”
