Motherwell's Sondre Solholm Johansen says the Steelmen have displayed their European spot potential after a 0-0 draw with Hibs.
The Norwegian centre-back was involved in plenty of tussles - including a running battle with Hibs defender Rocky Bushiri at set-pieces - as a stalemate played out.
Kevin Van Veen missed a big chance for 'Well in the first half before Liam Donnelly and manager Graham Alexander were sent off in the second period.
Solholm believes the point was merited, keeping Motherwell fourth in the Premiership. But the Bushiri battle had left him bruised.
He said: "Their big defender, he's a funny guy. As soon as Sean Goss kicked the ball, he just sprinted towards me with his elbows. To be fair, it was good, tough, physical.
"I'll just call him rock as that's what it was like running into him! Hibs are a tough side. We defended well and I don't think they had any proper chances, outside of something late in the game.
"That's all they had. So I am very happy. Against Ross County, it was three individual mistakes that cost us the goals. So it was a weird game in that sense.
"We took the positives from that and excluded the negatives. As people can see, we are a good team when we don't concede goals like that.
"We went down to 10 men, so to finish 0-0 is a decent result."
They've had blips like last week's 3-1 defeat away at Ross County, but Motherwell are now in the top four and undefeated at home since a 6-1 thrashing off Rangers on Halloween.
There's a long way to go until the season's end, but Solholm said: "It's good to show that we are up there. We can compete with these teams and everyone in the top six.
"Apart from the disappointing game against Rangers, we've been level with all of them. I would say we are quite happy with where we are.
"We are happy to show the fans that we are here to compete for those top four spots. I see the group every day. We demand so much from each other.
"If we can keep this level of defensive performance up, hopefully we'll score some more goals and get more points."
Follow Lanarkshire Live Sport on Twitter via @LanLiveSport, like us on Facebook or find us on Instagram for the latest sports news, pictures and video.
