City opened up a three-point lead at the top of the Premier League by extending their perfect start to five games despite conceding a hat-trick to Dutch striker Brian Brobbey.
Antoine Semenyo struck twice, while Enzo Fernandez, Rayan Cherki and Erling Haaland were also on target as City's offensive arsenal made amends for an afternoon to forget defensively.
"To be honest, I prefer to win 1-0 than 5-3 but I expected a very difficult game," said Maresca.
"I knew how they good are, off the ball very aggressive and on the ball they have different weapons: set-pieces, and Brobbey."
Maresca has made light of the daunting task of stepping into the shoes of Pep Guardiola.
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City were outclassed by Arsenal in the Community Shield last month but have responded with seven consecutive wins in all competitions since.
"The good thing also is that these seven official games we played they are all different," Maresca added.
"We experienced different things, the last one with 10 men (against Manchester United), today was a complicated one, the Bournemouth one we were losing 1-0, so also a chance to learn."
Brobbey became the first player since 2007 to score a Premier League hat-trick but end up on the losing side.
The Dutch international had not scored this season prior to Sunday but Sunderland boss Regis Le Bris said he never doubted that Brobbey would come good.
"I'm really pleased for him because it's never easy to have a long period without scoring. Now it's done."
Sunderland could even have racked up more goals as they rattled City for long periods, but were undone by the quality of Maresca's men going forward.
"It's a defeat, but we are proud of the level of the squad," Le Bris added. "We created many chances. Probably deserved to score two or three more goals so it was really tight.
"At that level against one of the best teams in Europe a half chance gets punished, and it's probably the lesson of the day."
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