Kevin De Bruyne believes Manchester City's derby defeat was maybe “necessary” to help their pursuit of glory this season.
City saw their 21-game winning streak and 28-game unbeaten run ended with Sunday's 2-0 defeat at home to local rivals United.
Despite losing, Pep Guardiola's side still hold an 11-point lead over United at the top of the table, with 10 games left to play, and remain on course for an unprecedented Quadruple.
City are in the EFL Cup final, FA Cup quarter-finals and hold a 2-0 lead over Borussia Monchengladbach after a first-leg away win in their Champions League last 16 tie.
Although disappointed with the end of their epic run, midfielder De Bruyne said the United loss may end up being a positive, allowing City to refocus as the season enters the home straight.
"Obviously it's not nice to lose the derby," said De Bruyne.
"But sometimes it's necessary to have hard games and even lose games.
"You learn a lot about these moments and now we have to recover and work hard again to be ready for Wednesday.
"The gap is there but we have to focus on Southampton. It doesn’t matter how big the gap is, as we want to win the next game.
"That's on Wednesday against Southampton and we have to be ready for it.
"We play game by game, we don't think about the winning streak or what’s going to happen in four or five matches ahead.
"We need to pick ourselves up, because we have another important match on Wednesday. We're going to try to do our job and win again.”
City know victory over Saints tomorrow will extend their lead over United and take them a step closer to winning a third league title in four years.
"We move on,” said De Bruyne. “Wednesday is a new game and we'll focus on that. We have confidence that in the next game we'll put the missed chances in.”
