The blue revolution in Manchester has undergone something of a reality check over the past week. Defeats by Brighton & Hove Albion in the Carling Cup and Wigan Athletic in the Barclays Premier League had brought Manchester City down to earth with a bump after the euphoria that greeted the completion of Sheikh Mansour’s £200 million takeover of the club, but a little momentum was regained last night.

City will have to raise their game if they are to trouble an in-form Liverpool on Sunday, but against a poor Omonia Nicosia team, whose apparent reluctance to emerge for the second half spoke volumes about their ambition, Mark Hughes’s men never needed to be at anything like their best.

A header from Rasheed Alabi with 12 minutes to go caused a little anxiety, but City’s progress to the group stage seemed assured the moment that they took the lead shortly after the restart and few teams will want to be paired with them when the draw is made on Tuesday.

The tie was settled in the space of eight minutes in the second half when Elano scored with a wondrous strike before Shaun Wright-Phillips staked another claim for a call-up to Fabio Capello’s England squad with his fourth goal in six matches since his £8.5 million return from Chelsea.

“Progress in Europe is really key to the development of the team,” Hughes said. “People have to understand that we’re a young team, we’re still developing and we don’t have much experience in Europe, which throws up different problems that we want to learn from.”

With Liverpool up next, Hughes had talked in the build-up about “putting the game to bed early” so that he could use his best players sparingly, but that plan backfired as City were forced to wait until the 48th minute before breaking the deadlock.

It almost came as a relief when a fan ran across the pitch bearing his backside to the security officers trailing in his wake in the first half. As he made for the exit with his pursuers closing down on him, it was unclear whether he was trying to bring a little entertainment to proceedings or simply trying to escape the drudgery being served up.

Either way, at least the incident seemed to inject a little urgency into the players and get the crowd going. City had seemed happy to defend their 2-1 lead from the first leg, while Omonia appeared to have resigned themselves at an early stage to going out.

“We didn’t make best use of the pitch, we were trying to thread balls through the eye of needles and force the issue too quickly,” Hughes said. “We needed to show more patience and get the full backs farther up the pitch and cause them more problems.”

He must have given his players a dressing-down at half-time, because the improvement in the second period was marked. Elano’s goal was particularly special. Joe Hart’s long punt upfield was missed by Marcello Pletsch, the Omonia defender, giving Robinho the freedom of the left flank. Ghosting to the edge of the penalty area, the Brazilian pulled the ball back to his compatriot, who, 20 yards out, fizzed a delightful effort with the outside of his right boot into the bottom corner. Elano is clearly relishing life alongside Robinho.

The second goal quickly followed. Robinho clipped a pass out wide to Pablo Zabaleta, who stroked the ball first time into the path of Wright- Phillips. With the aid of lucky bounces off two defenders, the winger wriggled free to rifle a shot home.

Needing three goals to progress, Omonia’s heads dropped. They momentarily found some encouragement when Alabi headed home from a corner by Efstathios Aloneftis, but it was short-lived.

Martin Petrov, a substitute making his first appearance for City after five weeks out because of a hamstring injury, could have claimed a hat-trick after forcing three fine saves, but by then thoughts were already drifting to Liverpool.

Manchester City (4-1-4-1): J Hart — P Zabaleta, T Ben-Haim, M Richards, J Garrido — V Kompany (sub: D Hamann, 66min) — S Wright-Phillips, S Ireland, Elano, Robinho (sub: M Petrov, 71) — Jô (sub: C Evans, 67). Substitutes not used: K Schmeichel, M Ball, G Fernandes, D Sturridge. Booked: Ben-Haim.

Omonia Nicosia (4-1-4-1): A Georgallides — H Ndikumana, M Pletsch, T Wenzel, E Charalambous — A Zlogar — D Christofi (sub: Cafu, 80), K Kaiafas (sub: R Alabi, 46), M Bangura (sub: Clayton, 60), Y Okkas — E Aloneftis. Substitutes not used: N Asprogenis, D Maris, F Aguirre, A Pantic.

Referee: S Ennjimi (France).