Exactly what teams and managers want from pre-season friendlies is often hard to gauge, but ultimately there's no specific aspect to each game and it's a bit of everything: minutes, performance, a positive result, no injuries, room to experiment and individuals presenting a case for themselves.
At Plymouth Argyle on Saturday, City ticked most of those boxes and although the performance wasn't outstanding they did achieve something of note, albeit in uncompetitive circumstances - the ability to stay in a game they were second-best at times and grind out a win.
Yes, we know, it doesn't necessarily matter and was also impacted by the volume of substitutions but it still happened and is something extra to take away from the contest and use some part of for the season ahead, given the hosts were, at times, excellent on the ball.
