Manchester City were threatening to end their winning sequence at 16 until Raheem Sterling turned a humdrum evening into a celebration with a goal two minutes from time. A 17th successive win in all competitions means City have won their group with a match to spare, though in fact that was already the case when Sterling played a give-and-go with Ilkay Gündogan and raced through to beat Brad Jones with an angled shot.

Napoli’s goals against Shakhtar Donetsk had confirmed City’s untouchability at the top of Group F by that stage, and though this was far from one of their most memorable performances it could be excused on the grounds key players such as David Silva, Fernandinho and Leroy Sané were rested. And that City kept plugging away right until the end to achieve a win that hardly mattered. Pep Guardiola will have been pleased to see that, and so will the home supporters and compilers of records. “Raheem is a striker who scores important goals,” the manager said. “But he’s young, he can still improve. We can all do better.”

There are still some big names that even group-toppers might face in the knockout stage, though Guardiola is unconcerned. “All we can do is win our games and hope to keep winning,” he said. “Fifteen points from 15 is not too bad and this is the first time City have topped their Champions League group [actually the second, though they did not do it with maximum points in 2015-16].”

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Plenty of people maintain that David Silva remains the most indispensable City player, despite all the eye-catching talent brought in since his arrival in June 2010, and a fairly flat opening to this game suggested they might have a point. Silva was left on the bench, Yaya Touré and Gündogan came into midfield, and all of a sudden City were not carving great holes in the opposition defence. Gündogan and Touré lumbered about looking less than razor sharp, as might be expected, and though Kevin De Bruyne was on the pitch he looked a little tired, as if he too would have been glad of a rest.

The first half hour passed almost incident free, certainly in terms of goalmouth incident. Sergio Agüero found the by-line but put too much on his cross for Sterling to reach, then after a Nicolás Otamendi interception had caught Feyenoord short of cover at the back, Agüero steadied himself for a shot but sent it straight at Jones.

Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, Guardiola had not opted to rest Ederson in favour of Claudio Bravo, and the Brazilian goalkeeper was nearly the unwanted centre of attention midway through the half when he came out to clear with his feet and miscontrolled to give Jean-Paul Boëtius a sight of the ball. Unflummoxed, Ederson simply used his feet again to dispossess Boëtius with a well-timed challenge,

Sam Larsson went close with a low shot shortly after that, though even operating on economy-setting City still produced the best chances of the first half. Gündogan shot wastefully high when trying to emulate De Bruyne’s super goal at Leicester last weekend, Agüero headed uncharacteristically wide when perfectly picked out by De Bruyne’s cross, and most glaringly of all Bernardo Silva could only manage what amounted to a back pass to Jones when Sterling gave him a clear close-range opportunity.

The second half was initially no more promising, Agüero contriving a volley that went backwards from Danilo’s cross from the left, and though De Bruyne pounced greedily on the rebound his effort was even more spectacularly off target. Then De Bruyne received an almost comical booking to earn a useful suspension by blatantly barging over Steven Berghuis just as Gündogan was moving in to make a legitimate tackle. Larsson put the free-kick over Ederson’s bar but that was the signal for Guardiola to replace De Bruyne with Gabriel Jesus.

Touré went close with a free kick as the game entered its final quarter, yet the invention City were missing was highlighted when Feyenoord created a great chance with skilful close passing. Tonny Vilhena and Larsson combined neatly to put Berghuis through on goal and he was only denied by a first-class reaction save from Ederson.

With 15 minutes remaining, just after some more insouciant footwork from Ederson and a shot on the turn from Agüero that flew wide, Guardiola brought on the 17-year-old prodigy Phil Foden for his first taste of senior football. He did not make a startling difference, though neither did he look out of place.

He was probably wondering, like everyone else, whether this was the same City side he has been watching for the last few months, before Sterling came up with the happy ending. “What we’ve shown this season,” City’s matchwinner said, “no matter if it’s Champions League, Premier League, cup games, we’ve got the mentality that we want to win and even if it’s sometimes ugly, we just try to make sure we get the win.”