Phil Brown was delighted to see the Tigers progress through to the final of the 2009 Barclays Asia Trophy on Wednesday but felt his side should have killed off their opposition much earlier.

City eventually saw off Beijing Guoan 5-4 in a penalty shoot-out but manager Brown felt the game should have been wrapped up by half time after Geovanni had scored early on.

"It's always difficult going into a game when you don't really know the opposition," said Brown.

"That is not being disrespectful to Guoan because I thought they were tremendous opposition. They showed what they were capable of in the first ten minutes and put us on the back foot to a certain extent.

"But I thought the goal took the wind out of their sales. They were on the back foot after that and we could have killed the game before half time. But 1-0 was always dangerous.

"After they equalised, there were one or two scary moments for us as well as them. It was a competitive match.

"But we've come here to be competitive and not just to make the numbers up. It's also about our preparation (for the new season) and our fitness levels.

"We want to rekindle a little bit of the desire that went to a certain extent towards the end of last season and we showed a little bit of that today.

"It was important that we progressed through to the final and we did that. People might have looked at our opposition today and thought that it would be an easy game, but pre-season games are never easy.

"Our levels of fitness in the searing heat were testimony to three weeks of hard work."

The Tigers will now face Tottenham Hotspur on Friday with the game kicking off at 8.30pm local time.