Sevilla vs Manchester City match report: Raheem Sterling, Fernandinho and Wilfried Bony on target as progress is confirmed

Sevilla 1 Manchester City 3: Manchester City through to knock-out phase with two games to spare

Raheem Sterling with Fernandinho (GETTY IMAGES)

It was long before the end that the raucous Spanish audience, who have seen some talent in their years as a net producer of football diamonds, accepted that they had witnessed a player who stood on a higher plain. They applauded Raheem Sterling as he departed early, after a display which wrapped up Manchester City’s qualification for the Champions League group stage and deconstructed the usual untidy narrative about them and Europe.

To have qualified barely before the clocks have gone back is unprecedented where their torturous four-year Champions League story is concerned and winning a group stage is the target with the journey to Juventus in three weeks potentially decisive. “It is not the most important thing,” Pellegrini said – though topping a group could help City avoid Barcelona or Real Madrid for one game more at least. “The most important thing is to continue playing the next two games in Europe and the premier League in the way we played today.”

There was no doubting his satisfaction at disproving those who used the opening defeat at home to Juventus as evidence of the same old City ills. He could allow himself that because he had been the architect of the changes which worked: made, he said, because he had been dissatisfied with the way his team has been playing. Fernando was introduced to add the midfield defensive ballast which has been missing, freeing both Fernandinho and Yaya Toure to advance.

Though Sterling’s virtuoso performance will win him the plaudits, it was Fernandinho, operating in the role he occupied in his eight years at Shakhtar Donetsk who proved the revelation with his pace, aggression and vision in the final third. “It was one of the reasons we dominated in the midfield because we had Fernandinho and Yaya both going forward,” reflected Pellegrini. “I was not happy in the way we were playing so we need a change. Today we changed the system and for that we made a very good game.” Perhaps piqued into a performance by the knowledge that his shortcomings had provoked the change, Toure also offered the big defensive dimension for a change.

Sterling was the one who glittered, though. A Seville side whose home record in Europe – ten successive wins before this – suggested a hard old night ahead were swamped by City in an opening 20 minutes during which, from an Andalusian perspective, Raheem Sterling was as close as you will get to unplayable. One of the Spaniards executives at the top of Manchester City was privately enthusing late on Monday night about the quality of coaching here in Spain’s deep South. But the way Sterling reduced the 28-year-old captain and defender Coke to a statuesque figure – sweeping ahead of him to receive a ball Fernandinho angled inside him to slot in an early opening goal – was one of the first knockings of a nightmare night.

Sterling left the same player way behind again with a nutmeg, four minutes later, and weaved into the area to level for Wilfried Bony whose shot, parried by Sergio Rico, provided the chance to Fernandinho to nod home again on the angle. Sterling will not encounter more favourable opposition than this, with the space between the midfield and defensive banks creating space for him to exploit. But his virtuosity – reducing Ever Banega to the ranks of the very ordinary too - made that £44m transfer fee appear very good business indeed. Coke was withdrawn on 55 minutes and it was certainly not tactical. Humiliation indeed.

There was the worry of the knock Sterling took when supplying the second goal, which left him writhing in agony. He required attention again ten minutes later, thought there seemed to be damage when he left.

City’s 16 shots on goal by half time – Jesus Navas struck the inside of Rico’s post, too - told its own story.

The suspense which the side introduce to their Europe adventures generally involves defensive insecurity and Joe Hart heroics. That element was certainly present again, too. Fernando Llorente had managed to lever the ball over the bar from close range, with Hart committed, before Coke atoned for his struggles by advancing down the right and crossing for his opposite full-back, Benoit Tremoulinas, to head in unhindered at the back post. Hart then saved sharply again from Timothee Kolodziejczak’s header.

But the Spaniards did not trouble City again. Pellegrini’s side re-established their cushion before the interval - Navas cutting inside comfortably again and levelling for Bony, who held back to receive the ball and slot in the third – before the cruise of a second half. There is a delicacy about Bony’s touch and skills. The night will have built his confidence, too, though his finishing does nothing to diminish the sense that it is Sergio Aguero’s presence that City will depend on when big guns come around.

Pellegrini steadfastly refused to put this performance into some context as the best his side has delivered away from home in Europe. That is his way. Flights home from Europe have been occasions for strong emotions with City. There was the so-called Carlos Tevez insurrection in Munich, Roberto Mancini destroying his players in Amsterdam, the euphoria of last December in Rome. This time it was a calm affair and Pellegrini can only hope for other European novelties a few months down the line.