Kevin Keegan praised his players for their stubborn defending and tries to claim bragging rights.
'I think the players have had to put in a different type of performance to what we've ever asked them to do and they've done the club proud,' he said. 'Why should we come here and make things easy for them?'
'It means we can go round the city having not been beat. And we've beat them twice at home so we've done all right against Manchester United. We wanted to let other people know there's another club in this city.'
Alex Ferguson bowed to the inevitable and admitted United do not have the quality to succeed in the league this season.
Ferguson told MUTV: 'We're not good enough to win the championship on that form.' Before adding: 'It's disappointing, we dominated in terms of possession but in the derby games you've got to take your chances, there's no excuse. We're playing some good football. The possession figures are high, they never really had a chance in the game - it's nine-tenths right. It's not championship form. The belief was good, the intensity in the game was good at times. We just have to get a scoreline which encourages the goalscoring part of our game.'
Ferguson thought Graham Poll punished United for Rooney's penalty against Arsenal by turning down at least two stonewall claims in the first half.
'I've seen them two or three times, they're clear penalties, we got penalised for getting a penalty against Arsenal. If we get it, it's a different game.'