Manchester City moved into the next stage of the Uefa Cup in a less than convincing fashion despite the 4-2 aggregate scoreline against AC Omonia. The Cypriot outfit have a shamrock on their club badge but there was no luck of the Irish to prevent them falling to a 2-1 defeat on the night.
Two goals early in the second half settled City nerves after they failed to impress in the first forty five minutes.
Omonia looked comfortable at the back against City's laboured efforts whilst going forward they always posed a threat on the break.
Only as the first period came to an end did the home side exert any concerted pressure and silence the boisterous Cypriot supporters.
Robinho it was who proved the catalyst for two strikes in six minutes.
The Brazilian collected the ball out wide then bided his time before rolling the ball into the path of his fellow countryman Elano to fire home from 18 yards.
Again Robinho turned provider with a cross field pass to Shaun Wright-Phillips who burst into the penalty area. Twice the ball bounced kindly for the former Chelsea player allowing him to volley past Antonis Georgallides.
From a corner substitute Rasheed Alabi pulled a goal back for Omonia with a header to give City an anxious last 15 minutes.
City boss Mark Hughes admitted to being frustrated with the first half performance.
"We just hadn't been making the best use of the width of the pitch and were trying to thread balls threw the eye of a needle.
"We needed to show a bit more patience and not try to force the issue too much. Our full backs needed to be further up the pitch and put them under more pressure.
"We did that to a better extent in the second half and once we scored we looked more comfortable and even though they scored we saw the game out easily."
Hughes was now looking forward to the group stages of the competition to give his players more European experience.
"We are a young team still developing with little experience of Europe. It's a learning process for us and with a number of games now guaranteed we are looking forward to it."
"The plan tonight was to get through to the group stages and we've done that."