Manuel Pellegrini was pleased to see the return of Manchester City’s “aggressive” side as his men thrashed Newcastle 5-0 to reinvigorate their Premier League title defence.
The emphatic win not only cut Chelsea's lead at the top of the Premier League to five points, but provided the perfect confidence boost for Tuesday's Champions League last-16 clash against Barcelona.
And Pellegrini was left to reflect on a near-perfect performance, which saw City rediscover the attacking swagger that made them such formidable opponents in last season.
"Of course was a good day because we won our game, but it was not only that we won, but that we returned to being a scoring team here at the Etihad and we repeated our last performance against Stoke,” said the Blues boss.
"We were a solid team and an aggressive team from the beginning."
It took just 90 seconds for a rampant City to take the lead, with Sergio Aguero netting from the penalty spot, while further goals from Samir Nasri and the highly impressive Edin Dzeko put the result beyond doubt inside the first 21 minutes against a defensively woeful Newcastle
And they didn’t let up after the break, with David Silva's quickfire double putting the gloss on a cruising victory.
Dzeko's performance - which yielded his first goal since September - was timely, coming on the day new £25million striker Wilfried Bony made his debut off the bench.
Pellegrini said: "For Edin it is very important.
"Maybe one of the things that happened in January was that Edin was just coming back from a long injury and Sergio Aguero was also. Both of them, the way they had minutes, will help them return to their normal performance.
"Edin not only scored but worked very well the whole game."
City came from behind to win the title in both 2102 and 2014 and the nature of the win has suggested they are capable of repeating the feat.
Pellegrini said: "The experience is always important but I think all the teams will drop points from now until the end of the season so we will see which team will drop least points."
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