Manchester City players were largely pleased with their derby performance at Old Trafford, but accepted that they were at fault for allowing Manchester United to score two quick goals to win the game.
United followed up Bruno Fernandes' hugely controversial equaliser with Marcus Rashford's winner four minutes later to complete the turnaround that earned them three points that hauls them up to one point behind City.
The Blues have now lost back-to-back fixtures after their cup defeat at Southampton, and defender Nathan Ake says the squad were pleased with the response from that off-night at St Mary's.
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However, Ake also conceded that the team's reaction to United's equaliser ultimately cost them a point, and he vowed that City will work hard to put things right in the next fixture against Tottenham on Thursday.
Asked what was said in the dressing room at Old Trafford at full-time, Ake revealed: “Overall, it was a much better performance from us. When they scored the first goal we have to learn from that moment and play the same and don’t start to change things.
"Obviously, the last game we didn’t play well. We were much better in large parts of the game in this one today so we can take that as a positive, but as a City player you want to win all the games and these kinds of games. All we can do now is get ourselves back together and focus on the next one.
"We just have to make sure we recover well and until the next one we have a little bit longer, so we’ll focus on that, prepare and go into it with confidence.”
Assessing the game, Ake expanded on City's response to Fernandes' leveller, which should have been disallowed as Marcus Rashford was clearly offside in the build-up and interfering in play.
“I think the first half was quite even. We had control of the ball, but we didn’t create too much," Ake said.
"I think the second half we came out much better, we started to dominate and created a very good goal. We had control of the match. They scored and then we lost it.”
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