The in-form visitors made an electric start and almost had the lead inside 17 seconds as Marcus Rashford turned away from Ruben Dias before arrowing a shot with his left foot towards the bottom right corner, but the ball crashed off the inside of the post.
The early warning sparked City to life and we grabbed the lead in the seventh minute, as Omar Marmoush sprinted beyond Matty Cash on the left flank and crossed into the box.
The ball deflected kindly into the path of Bernardo Silva, whose shot had enough venom to escape the palms of goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez and bounce into the net, marking our 100th Premier League goal against the Villans.
Then 11 minutes later, they levelled from the penalty spot through Rashford, after Ruben Dias was penalised for bringing Jacob Ramsey down inside the box following an onfield review by referee Craig Pawson.
After the interval and just on the hour mark, James McAtee showed superb awareness and invention to lob an effort from Kevin De Bruyne’s through ball over Martinez, but the ball dropped just wide of the right post.
In the fourth minute of stoppage time, we finally broke Villa’s resilience as the energetic substitute Jeremy Doku got down the left flank and played the ball across the box for Nunes to tap in the winner and spark wild scenes at the Etihad Stadium.
The victory propels us into third place in the league table, one point ahead of Nottingham Forest and two ahead of Newcastle, with both teams having played a game less.
View the best images from the enthralling victory via our match gallery below.
