Tony Pulis delighted for West Brom players after holding Manchester United

Goalkeeper Ben Foster made several key saves, while the Baggies remained disciplined in defence as they kept a first clean sheet away from home since the opening day of the season.

Pulis was understandably pleased with the result but felt his side had at times been guilty of giving away possession too easily.

“I thought we were really resilient and well set-up in lots of respects,” he said. “One thing I will say is that we’ve played very similar against Arsenal last week.

“But once we won the ball, we got that first pass off and we created lots of opportunities.

“I think we had eight great chances against Arsenal and scored three great goals.

“Today we didn’t do that. We kept giving the ball back to United and that added to the pressure.

“Then you need a bit of good fortune at times and for people to play well. That’s what we did.

In possession we must do better than that.”

After a drab first half, Foster denied Henrikh Mkhitaryan one-on-one and then twice saved superbly from Marcus Rashford.

Skipper Darren Fletcher then came close to grabbing an unlikely winner when his shot slipped through the hands of United keeper David De Gea and bounced off the bar.

“The bigger clubs have got the money, the skill and the ability,” added Pulis. “The smaller clubs in the league who haven’t got the money to buy that skill and ability, you have to work very hard on organisation.

“That’s what we have to do - be very organised and well set-up. Then you need a little bit of good fortune as well.

“I’m delighted for the players, they’ve worked really hard today.

“I’ll be critical and I’ll be talking to them on Monday because the changeover of play.

“There were times when we had simple passes and made the wrong decisions.

“But how can I criticise them after that? They were very good and worked so hard together as a group.”

United finished the game having had 75 per cent possession and 18 shots compared to Albion’s three.

But their manager Jose Mourinho, will clearly frustrated at the result, refused to be critical of the approach adopted by the visitors.

“I'm not critical of it,” he said. “They come for that clearly, yes. No doubts about it.

“You ask Tony he will say that one point is good for their objectives.

“They want to finish top ten and one more point for them at Old Trafford is good for them.

“I can't criticise them for that.”