The England striker played a clever one-two with Ilkay Gundogan in the dying stages of a fairly drab encounter before comfortably chipping the Feyenoord keeper for City’s 18th win in 19 league and cup games this season.

With City already through to the knockout stages, Guardiola had made seven changes from Saturday’s win at Leicester, although Kevin De Bruyne kept his place.

Cynics possibly viewed that as a chance for the brilliant Belgian to collect the one booking he needed to serve a suspension before the Champions League gets down to the serious business, which De Bruyne later did.

There was an anxious moment after 26 minutes when City goalkeeper Ederson juggled a back-pass on the edge of his area, looked about to lose it to Jean-Paul Boetius but recovered to make a tackle.

That was a rare moment of relief for a Feyenoord side roared on by more than 4,000 fanatical travelling fans.

A brilliant Sergio Aguero cross almost played in Sterling who could not quite control and De Bruyne forced his way through the middle to set up the Argentinian to shoot directly at goalkeeper Brad Jones.

Gundogan shot over from just outside the box and, within 60 seconds of each other, Aguero headed wide from De Bruyne and Sterling’s powerful strike was parried by Jones and scooped to safety.

Bernardo Silva should also have done better, after great work by Sterling, but refused to put the ball on to his right foot and, instead, shot meekly at Jones.

That miss came just seconds after another warning from the Dutch who, without a point in group play this season, had little to lose at the Etihad.

The lively Boetius set up Sam Larsson who skilfully opened up the chance to curl a shot tantalisingly wide of the right-hand post.

The opening minutes of the second half saw City continue to threaten, with Sven Van Beek required to make a good clearance from under his own crossbar as Silva’s cross was about to be turned in by Sterling.

Soon after Aguero laid the ball off for De Bruyne whose right-foot shot swerved wide off the outside of his boot and then City’s record goalscorer sent yet another attempt flying over from just inside the area.

But City struggled to test Jones and at the other end De Bruyne, below, was required to bring down Steven Berghuis on the edge of the area, conveniently earning that booking.

Larsson sent the free-kick sailing over and De Bruyne responded at the other end, rolling a shot just wide before trotting off to be replaced.

Yaya Toure was presented with City’s next opening, narrowly missing the target with a free-kick from 20 yards but the visitors remained in contention with Ederson forced into a superb save from Steven Berghuis’s strike.

Brilliant youngster Phil Foden came on for his debut as a 76th-minute substitute but it was Sterling who stole the show.