Emery makes a point of being positive for run-in

VILLA left the Etihad Stadium empty-handed after being downed by a 94th-minute winner from Matheus Nunes.

- By JOHN TOWNLEY

The Portuguese midfielder finished at the back post after Jeremy Doku beat Axel Disasi on the left and fired the ball across the box.

Manchester City had taken the lead early on through Bernardo Silva before Marcus Rashford converted from the penalty spot shortly after to level the game.

City's late winner moved them four points clear of Villa heading into the final four matches of the Premier League season. Here are Tuesday night's talking points.

Top-five hopes take a hit

Not equalising at all would have made defeat easier to swallow - but shipping late goals is nothing new for Villa this season. That is now eight conceded after the 90th minute, with only Southampton letting in more.

It was a real sickener but Villa manager Unai Emery admitted he wasn’t even content with a point in the first place.

“We can’t waste time. We lost in the last minute of this match, but we competed well, we were close to drawing,” he said. “We were trying to win the match as well with the subs, but they did the same and they scored.

“We can take a lot of positive things and now is a moment to be positive. I'm going to analyse the match and try to get a lot of information from it.

“We have to accept this defeat. We played a very competitive match for 90 minutes. Sometimes we were defending compact. Sometimes it was a medium or low block.

“We knew before the match what difficulty we would face. I think the players responded fantastic. We created good chances on transition. In the second half they started pushing and getting corners, but we defended well.

“We got a very good opportunity through Marcus Rashford. When the draw was going to be a good point for us, I pushed the players to get one opportunity to win the match.