Bruno Fernandes says Manchester United must win next Sunday's derby "at all costs" after failing to beat Watford.
United lost further ground in the race for a top-four place, which put further pressure on them to go to local rivals Manchester City next weekend and claim three points.
Fernandes was guilty of wasting three chances to score himself and admitted United's failure to beat Watford means they have no option but to beat Pep Guardiola 's league leaders.
"We have to look to the next game, to win the game and to get three points again," Fernandes told MUTV. "It's one of those games where we know what it means for the city, for the fans, for the club and for ourselves.
"It's a game we want to win at all costs."
Join the debate! Will United beat City in the Manchester Derby? Let us know your score prediction below.
Reflecting on United's failure to turn a dominant display into a victory, Fernandes said: "It was just one of those days where the ball wouldn't go in.
"Unfortunately for us, it was just one point. We've dropped points on third place again. I think that's the main thing for us, as we could be much closer to Chelsea.
"However, now is not the time to start thinking about how many points we should have now or how many points we should have in the end. We had good chances, big chances to score.
"I think I had two big chances to score a goal. But in the end, it turned into one of those days where we could have been here for another hour and still not scored."
Interim manager Ralf Rangnick shared Fernandes' frustration, adding: "We did everything apart from scoring. We have to take the result, it is difficult to win the game.
"We were in full control for almost the whole game, they had hardly any counter attacks apart from the last five minutes. Apart from that, we were in total control of the game.
"We had enough chances. In the first half we had four clear opportunities that normally would have been enough to score one or two goals. In the second half there were similar.
"It is about efficiency, about being clinical in front of goal and this is not for the first time unfortunately but apart from that we were in true control of the game, dominated the game."
Rangnick, appearing to lay the blame on his players, went on to admit: "Our job as coaches is to help the team create enough chances.
"If we only had two or three opportunities in the game we could ask ourselves, well what can we do to create more chances but I think the number of clear chances we had today has to be enough to win a game like this."
