Jose Mourinho has admitted that the lack of quality in the Manchester United midfield forced him to "play for the draw" in Thursday's Manchester derby stalemate.
The Red Devils made the short trip to the Etihad Stadium for a highly-anticipated clash with Manchester City, but it ended as a goalless draw devoid of much action.
With a sizeable injury list which includes Juan Mata and Paul Pogba, Mourinho conceded that his makeshift midfield was "missing quality".
The Portuguese coach told Sky Sports News: "We wanted to do more in terms of attacking and to explore more of the counter attack.
"In the first half we had good control but the second became more difficult. We had to make a decision to play for the draw and had to fight hard to take a point.
"They started strong, pushed hard and I promised not to speak about players who weren't playing so I won't but we just didn't have the quality of players in midfield - we were missing quality there.
"In the first half, we were always dangerous and there were points where our movement could have been the start of something important but we lost too many balls."
The result keeps Man United fifth in the Premier League table with 64 points, a place and a point beneath Man City with five fixtures left to play.