Watching Manchester City is not exactly straightforward at the moment. Downright confusing most of the time. Different tweaks on the same tactical theme each week, City learning on the job under new management.

Enzo Maresca recently revealed that he would rather win games 1-0 than these helter-skelter, drama-filled, error-strewn goal fests but they are not yet capable of producing that. And the players know it.

On leading in Saxony, secured by Castello Lukeba's own goal, Maresca called for Phil Foden and Abdukodir Khusanov to sprint for the bench to receive detailed instructions. As they did, Marc Guehi and Enzo Fernandez engaged in deep conversation. Gesturing arms as Erling Haaland and Elliot Anderson spoke while walking back to halfway.

The body language was as if they had gone behind. Strangely, that might encourage the boss. They know this all can improve drastically in a quest to become more cohesive. There is definitely the talent among the squad to possess a certainty of how to emphatically dominate games like this one.

None of this is particularly different to when they went on the seven-game winning run to fly out of the blocks in the Premier League, imperfections making them eminently watchable but not a team in Maresca's ideal image yet. Not by a long shot.

Later, when Anderson and Rayan Cherki were locked in debate about how to press from a goal kick, it served as a reminder of Maresca's words that this is a fresh project and change takes time. Chinks exist.

Yet on the surface this presentable a creditable result, won by Haaland with 12 minutes left as they nestle inside the Champions League's top eight. All good for now, although added confusion comes in how little this could all mean amid an appeal of the independent commission's findings. Nobody is dissecting Maresca's evolving masterplan if they lose in court.

'We need to step up,' said Haaland, captain for the night. 'Keeping the ball, knowing when to keep it and when to go, working together offensively and defensively.'

Maresca himself admitted to shaking up the midfield and back four because he is feeling out a best XI, one he can rely upon and one that mixes that quintessentially City dominance and a more direct attacking line that can punish in a nanosecond.

'I need to understand more things about the players,' he said. 'That's why I'm so confident because I'm sure that we're going to be better and better.'

Coached by one of the Italian's closest friends and former City centre-half Martin Demichelis, Leipzig felt they deserved more. They went behind in unfortunate circumstances, although Enzo Fernandez lurked at the back post to do the honours from Nico O'Reilly's drilled cross had Lukeba not completed the job for him.

And Gianluigi Donnarumma was offering encouragement, almost embarrassed by Antonio Nusa's shot squirting through his fingers. Among other opportunities, Christoph Baumgartner curled wide from the box's edge. Baumgartner had oceans to himself amid a vacant City midfield. Anderson had gone to put out a fire out wide, vacating his holding position.

Anderson was operating there alone on the night, not something he has done regularly since a £116million summer switch, and it presented yet another iteration of Maresca's City as he attempts to locate the perfect formula.

Then two minutes summing up Donnarumma. Full stretch to acrobatically tip another Baumgartner shot wide seconds after the restart. And yet, shortly after, suffering one of those moments that are becoming far too common.

Ridle Baku was the beneficiary of the goalkeeper's poor positioning, forgetting about his near post, and flashed in. Somebody of Donnarumma's standing cannot allow that to happen. He would soon fumble another Baku shot, which led to a penalty appeal.

'It is not a concern but it is a mistake,' Maresca said. 'Before that he did a save that no other keeper in the world makes. Gigio knows he was not good with the goal. He's going to do better.'

City missed plenty of chances themselves before Fernandez headed in a second from Iliman Ndiaye's whipped cross but that lead only lasted three minutes, Nusa slamming into the far corner just after the hour. 'Silly goals,' Maresca said.

City kept ploughing forward, Anderson kept driving on. Ndiaye set Anderson storming down the right and he knew the area to hit. Back post, Haaland. A wicked cross, a striker's finish. Game won. Maybe that's what they were chatting about earlier.