City confident for final fling

Manuel Pellegrini has called for more of the same as Manchester City head into Sunday’s Capital One Cup final after a superb Champions League victory in Kiev.

City produced one of their best displays of the season to beat Dynamo Kiev 3–1 in the Ukrainian capital and put themselves in sight of a place in the quarter–finals for the first time.

Now attention switches to Sunday's Wembley date with Liverpool – the next match in a critical spell that also includes a Barclays Premier League trip to Anfield next Wednesday.

City boss Pellegrini said: "It is another competition now. I think it was very important to try to qualify for the next stage of the Champions League, and we have made a step here.

"Now we must try to recover the players that we have as soon as we can. We know we have a difficult game against Liverpool and I hope that by playing similar to the way we played here we can win our first title of the season."

City should certainly have a spring in their step after a display that banished their recent run of poor form and put the controversy over Sunday's weakened team at Chelsea in the FA Cup to one side.

Captain Vincent Kompany hopes the team have got themselves back on track at the right time.

Kompany said of the win in Kiev: "It was a good performance all round from the team. I think the main thing is when you do a good job you get a lot of satisfaction out of it, and you want to hold on to that feeling for as long as possible.”