‘‘I thought with the effort and determination of the players we thoroughly deserved the draw.

‘‘It was a big point and the lads are very confident. They’re not jumping off the tables, but they’re well content - it’s a good place to get a confidence boost.

‘‘There weren’t many chances in the game, but if we’d got beaten I’d have felt it was extremely unjust.’’

He continued: ‘‘We had more players playing to their abilities than on Wednesday when Liverpool lost 2-0 at Southampton.

‘‘But if you’re a big player you look forward to big games and they knew they had to react after Wednesday.

‘‘We’re still in the title race, but there are a lot of games to come for all clubs - it’ll be extremely tight at the end of the season, I can promise.’’

Gunners boss Arsene Wenger said: ‘‘We feel we have lost two points because we had the right attitude and fought hard.

‘‘When you’re 1-0 up you expect to win the game - the fact we got caught on the break is disappointing.

‘‘But overall we gave everything and that’s important for the future - in the last two or three months we’ve lost only one game.

‘‘We are improving and when you play good teams, they have quality strikers and they can score.’’

Wenger agrees the title race is wide open - but was as reluctant to make Manchester United favourites as he was to rule them out when they slumped to their sixth league defeat at home to West Ham a little over a month ago.

He added: ‘‘I was one of the few who didn’t write them off - but the title is not won for them. It’s open for everybody.

‘‘Each game is a cup game for the teams that want to fight for the title.’’