Erik ten Hag insists Manchester United are not dreaming of a championship challenge after they moved to within six points of leaders Arsenal with a rousing win over City.
United recovered from 1-0 down to score two goals in four minutes through Bruno Fernandes and Marcus Rashford to cap a stirring comeback and rise to third in the Premier League table.
City are only a point ahead of United, who have still not played half of their league fixtures this term. Ten Hag gave the supporters permission to dream but was critical in victory.
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"The fans may dream but we're not," Ten Hag said. "We have to keep our feet on the ground and then face that our game has a lot to improve.
"It can't happen that after half-time we lose so much control of the game, for instance, and then getting down is unnecessary.
"When we do the right things, when we follow the right rules, when we step up at the back in earlier moments we can control such moments and do the same as the first half.
"But it's also top football, the small details have a big impact and we have to keep working on that and keep investing in that.
"We improved, that's obvious. Still a long way to go, a long path to go, a lot of aspects in our game we have to improve but we're progressing, that's quite obvious."
City went 1-0 up on the hour through substitute Jack Grealish's header but United levelled in the 78th minute when Fernandes's equaliser was deemed legitimate as the offside Marcus Rashford had not touched the ball.
United had only recovered from conceding first to win once this season at Everton but their resilience was evident as they defeated the champions.
"We often talk about teams, developing, tactics, progressing, one of the main jobs for a manager, for a coaching staff is to work on the mentality of the team and this mentality has a lot of elements," Ten Hag explained.
"One of them is resilience. The determination of this team is progressing a lot in those facts, dealing with setbacks, dealing with suffering in painful moments and keep going after setbacks like a goal against.
"I think we have also experienced players on the pitch and know that one moment games can change and I think we are much better to deal with such situations than a couple of months ago."
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