Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany was delighted with the level of performance that his side produced in their 3-1 away win against Dynamo Kiev and urged them to produce more of the same in the remainder of the season.
City have never reached the quarterfinals of the Champions League, but looked determined to break that record right from kick-off against a Dynamo side who struggled to get going following their lengthy winter break.
"We could have scored many more goals," Kompany said. "It was a Man City performance we'd like to see more often until the end of the season.
"We can take a lot of positives out of this game and it's a good start to a big week for us.
"It's the first time at this stage of the Champions League that we're going into the second leg with a good chance of going through -- that's never been the case before -- but we need to improve year in, year out.
"We may not have been drawn against Barcelona in this round, but this game was always going to be tough and we handled it with a lot of maturity and looked like a side who were hungry for success. We didn't play it safe looking for a draw or a 1-0 win and tried to kill the tie off tonight."
City cruised into a two-goal lead in Kiev thanks to strikes from Sergio Aguero and David Silva, but had goalkeeper Joe Hart to thank for a number of strong saves when Dynamo came back into the game after the break.
"Joe is obviously an unbelievable keeper," added Kompany. "I don't think he was called upon too many times, but when he had to do a job he did it well."
It has been a frustrating campaign for Kompany, who has missed nearly three months of the season with a recurring calf injury. But in just his second game since recovering, the City captain showed the Blues what they have missed in his absence as he marshalled his back four.
Kompany is now shifting his focus to Sunday's Capital One Cup final against Liverpool and is hoping City can build on their momentum from Wednesday's win over Dynamo.
"It's always easy to be a leader on the pitch when everybody does their job as they did in this match," he said. "Every game is a priority from now to the end of the season and we want to do as well as we can in this competition and try and win the Capital One Cup and the Premier League as well."