Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has argued that Manchester City had an advantage during this afternoon's derby due to their fixture schedule in the buildup to the game.
City hit six past Southampton and Shakhtar Donetsk in successive home games prior to Sunday's 3-1 win - which also came at home - whereas the trip to the Etihad was United's third away game in a row, including a midweek visit to Juventus in the Champions League.
Mourinho still believes that his side showed signs of improvement in the match despite their defeat, and vowed to prevent the loss from derailing their season.
"I am with my players and even with my players that today made mistakes that lead to Manchester City goals. We are together, we are not going to be affected by this. I am just sorry we don't play the next match soon and have to wait 13 days for that, but we are improving, we are together and go together until the end," he told reporters at his post-match press conference.
"One thing is they won in the championship. Analyse since the first match of the season, the points, they show one team starts strong and still is and another team didn't start well and is improving a lot. If you focus on the game today, it was open for 80-something minutes. I don't think anybody left the stadium.
"In a week where Manchester City played at home three matches, and we play three matches away, a week where they enjoy 6-0 and 6-1 victories, relaxed, no pressure, no mental effort, everything nice and easy. We played two matches away, difficult ones, where the second one was like a final for us against one of the best teams in Europe, a game that demanded from us everything, we had to give not just physically, but also mentally.
"So when I analyse the game today what the difference was, you can go for statistics - that's the way people that don't understand football analyse football. I go for what I felt and I watch in the game and the game was there until min 80-something. So I consider the performance of my team, a performance with mistakes, is different than a bad performance.
"One thing is a bad performance another thing is a performance with mistakes. We made mistakes and were punished by these mistakes, but the performance, the mentality, togetherness, fight until the end, was something we are building and we are not going to lose that because of a defeat."
The result leaves United already 12 points adrift of Manchester City after 12 games of the season.
Barney Corkhill
