Best of the rest
A fair few Manchester City fans were not happy at Pep Guardiola's team selection before the game, against the third-placed team, in a game in which supporters wanted revenge for their Etihad humiliation six months ago.
But by playing five of the six players who stayed behind in Manchester for the international break, plus Riyad Mahrez - whose only Algeria involvement was a game on Monday - he fielded a team that was refreshed physically and mentally.
And with Borussia Dortmund lying in wait just three days afterwards, it was a clear case of ensuring he had front-line players like Raheem Sterling, Ilkay Gundogan, Bernardo Silva, John Stones and Phil Foden fit and firing for that quarter-final first leg.
Stones sensible
Anyone seeking to make capital out of John Stones sitting on the bench for this game is plaiting fog.
Stones was always liable to be rested after playing two and a half games in the previous nine days, and with Aymeric Laporte not having played for nearly two weeks.
In fact, the likelihood is that Stones will return to the team on Tuesday, so being left out for a game with less jeopardy is actually an affirmation of Guardiola's belief in the England player after his midweek gaffe.
Vardy blotted
The Leicester frontman has been a major Manchester City tormentor ever since Guardiola took over in 2016 - in fact no player has scored more against one of the Catalan's teams than his eight in ten appearances.
Two of the lightning-fast striker's three Premier League hat-tricks have been against the Blues, one of them this season.
But City showed how far they have come defensively, with the solid pairing of Ruben Dias and Aymeric Laporte, shielded by the excellent Fernandinho and Rodri - who were bypassed in the 5-2 defeat in September - snuffing him out entirely.
Point proved
You could be forgiven for thinking Pep Guardiola's team selection was something of a point-proving exercise, given that he picked seven of the 11 starters from the 5-2 defeat in September.
That was coincidental, but it served to illustrate just how far the Blues have come since that alarming defeat, which was partly a result of being caught cold by having no pre-season.
He even revisited the double pivot of Fernandinho and Rodri which had looked sluggish and leaden-footed by the Foxes' streaming counter-attacks, and they simply sat on the opposition.
