Eva Olid left her first Manchester derby as head coach of Manchester United Women torn between pride and frustration, convinced her players had earned more than the 1-1 draw that Elisabeth Terland rescued with an 89th-minute equaliser against Manchester City on Sunday evening.

Khadija Shaw had put City in front midway through the second half at the Progress With Unity Stadium in Leigh, before Terland struck from close range with the clock almost run down. Olid did not hide her feelings in her post-match press conference, as published by the club.

“We wanted to win and I think we showed today that we really wanted to win this game, and I never say this, but today we really deserved to win, and now it’s a mix of feelings. But football sometimes is unfair,” she said.

Chances that went begging

United had the upper hand for long spells after the interval, according to the club’s match report. Terland was twice thwarted by Ayaka Yamashita around the 55th minute, and Jess Park, up against her old club, rattled the crossbar with a dipping strike shortly afterwards.

Olid put that down to finishing rather than a lack of ideas. “It’s more about us and that we didn’t score our chances. We create and we had the chances, it’s just that we didn’t put the ball inside the goal,” she said, before adding that the only remedy is “training, training, practice, practice, practice”.

She also accepted that Shaw will punish the smallest opening. Captain Maya Le Tissier had kept the City striker quiet for most of the night, and Sky Sports pointed out that her goal arrived on her 100th WSL appearance.

“Of course we plan to mark her, be close to her so she can feel the pressing, but still she has one ball in the box and she scores, that is what top players do,” Olid said.

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From a 5-0 low to five games unbeaten

The point extends United’s unbeaten league run to five matches, a big shift from a start that brought defeats by London City Lionesses and Chelsea. Olid has already pointed to frank talks after the 5-0 loss to Chelsea as the turning point, and she came back to that idea on Sunday, describing “a lot of honest conversations in that moment about what we can do to change this, and how we can connect.”

She rated the display as “one of our best performances in general in terms of fight, hard work, how we were pressing”, while making clear the job is far from finished. “Still we need to keep improving, but today there were moments that I could see how we want to play. It’s a good point today, building from here, forward.”

City lose top spot

The draw ended City’s perfect record after six straight WSL wins. With Chelsea coming from behind to beat Crystal Palace, Andree Jeglertz’s side are now level on points with the Blues but second on goal difference.

It was a rare bright spot on a grim Sunday for the club, after Michael Carrick’s men were beaten 3-0 at Old Trafford by Bournemouth earlier in the day. Olid’s side have little time to dwell on it, with Burnley visiting Leigh on Wednesday evening in the Subway Players’ Cup.