Manchester City may have steadied the ship in the Premier League but Pep Guardiola knows his players must use the renewed confidence from their 6-0 annihilation of Ipswich to keep their Champions League hopes alive.

City limbered up for Wednesday’s potentially pivotal trip to Paris St Germain by harvesting six unanswered goals against the Tractor Boys.

Phil Foden scored twice while Mateo Kovacic, Erling Haaland, Jeremy Doku and James McAtee were also on target at Portman Road.

Such was their dominance, City boss Pep Guardiola was able to bring off his key men and roll out the substitutes with the showdown in the French capital in mind.

City lie 22nd in the 36-team standings after six of their eight matches following their 4-1 defeat at Sporting Lisbon, the crazy 3-3 draw with Feyenoord and a 2-0 loss to Juventus during their alarming slump late last year.

PSG are a point and three places further behind, and with only the top 24 going through to the knockout stages the stakes could not be higher.

“After four or five nil I had my eye on Paris,” admitted Guardiola.

“We have two finals left, by winning two we qualify, winning one there’s a big possibility. We have to get the points because we created problems ourselves – especially with Feyenoord, even the game we lost in Lisbon.

“But in that moment we had a lot of problems. We could not compete the way we want for many reasons. Hopefully we can continue in Paris for the next game.”

While City climbed back into the Premier League top four, Ipswich’s problems deepened in the relegation zone.

And life does not  get any easier for Town boss Kieran McKenna, who takes his beleaguered side to leaders Liverpool next weekend.

“We know it’s another massive, massive challenge, so we’re going to need to show an incredibly amount of character next week at the training ground before going to Anfield, and that’s what we’re going to try and do,” he said.