After the unfortunate battering that the youngsters suffered on Sunday afternoon, manager Manuel Pellegrini made ten changes as Manchester City returned to their more familiar full-strength side, with the decision to rest key players a seemingly wise one.
Impressive first-half display by travelling Citizens
A quiet start to the night, the visitors enjoyed good spells of possession but Dynamo Kyiv - who hadn't played a competitive fixture since late December - were defensively resolute and within three minutes gave the sky Blues their first scare. A lofted ball swung in from a free-kick bobbled around the penalty area, and Joe Hart was forced into making a sharp reaction save to tip an eventual effort onto the side netting above the crossbar.
The night's opener was produced by a neatly-placed corner from David Silva, which was swung toward the path of Yaya Touré. The powerful Ivorian brought it down and Sergio Agüero was on hand to rifle home from close-range into the bottom corner with eleven minutes on the clock. From then on City remained firmly in the driving seat for the rest of the first-half, and took advantage too. David Silva doubled the scoring on the stroke of the interval, after some patient build-up play in the final third saw the ball break for Raheem Sterling driving down the left-hand side. His low cross was instinctively fired home by the experience Spaniard, netting only his fourth goal (in all competitions) of the season.
Kyiv fight-back but City boast comfortable advantage
After the half-time interval Kyiv themselves looked like a different side - tenacious in defence and attack as they managed to claw one goal back just before the hour mark. A ball whipped in was initially cleared away by Nicolas Otámendi, but only as far as midfielder Vitaliy Buyalskyi - who fired goalwards and his effort richocheted off the Argentine to wrongfoot Hart and creep into the bottom corner.
Despite halving the deficit, City found their groove once more and asked questions of the Kyiv backline, with Agüero, Touré and Fernandinho all coming close with respective chances in the latter stages. Touré made up for his headed miss from close-range with a peach of a shot arrowing into the top-left corner, virtually guaranteeing City's place in the quarter-finals of the competition.
Agüero was replaced by Kelechi Iheanacho in the first and only City change of the night, giving the young Nigerian his Champions League debut - a deserved achievement after his success and emergence in recent months. On a night where questions were asked about Pellegrini's mentality for resting players and effectively surrendering in the FA Cup to Chelsea, Manchester City answered the critics with a superb performance typical of any side that deserves to be in the quarter finals, defensively sound and ruthless in their attack.