Michael Carrick says Manchester United should look upon their 0-0 draw with Manchester City as a point gained in the race for Champions League qualification.
United produced a defensively solid display to keep City at bay at the Etihad Stadium on Thursday, their efforts doubled after Marouane Fellaini was shown a straight red card for headbutting Sergio Aguero in the 84th minute.
Jose Mourinho's side had chances through Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Ander Herrera in the first half, but were far less attacking in the second and had to withstand significant late pressure.
Carrick, selected in midfield in place of the injured Paul Pogba, took the result as a positive, with United remaining one point behind City in fifth position.
"It's a point gained for us," he told Sky Sports.
"We would have loved to come here and won the game and we thought we could catch City on the break.
"We did have a couple of chances but we obviously had to defend for large spells in the game, but I thought overall we did that very well, apart from at the end when there was a bit of excitement and a bit of a flurry, but we saw the game out well.
"It makes things more difficult when you go down to 10 men. I know there wasn't too long left but when six minutes go up it's an awful long time to see out. We were intelligent and done it well.
"It's tight up there where we are and it's a point we can take from the game and move on.
"A lot of people made out that it was between us and City [for the top four] but it's a bigger picture than that at the moment. We're in a decent position but there's a lot of work to do."
