Nigel Pearson urged his Bristol City players to use their performance in the 0-0 draw at Millwall as a benchmark for the rest of the season.
The visitors grabbed a crucial point at The Den to bounce back from their 2-0 Boxing Day defeat against West Brom but have now won just once in nine Championship matches.
Captain Andreas Weimann should have snatched a late winner after Millwall’s Andreas Voglsammer had fired against the crossbar at the end of the first half.
Bristol City now lie just three points above the relegation zone, but under-fire Pearson believes replicating their performance in the capital can catapult them up the table in the new year.
He said: “(Boxing Day) was one game, this was one game – it’s more now the players recognise that that’s the level of application they need.
“I don’t know about deserve (to win it), but I think it was a very hard-fought game.
“Both sides had opportunities and we showed the right characteristics, which was good.
“We needed a response after Boxing Day and the players did well today.
“I think we defended very well as a team, I think we showed promise going forwards in a tough game.
“We defended set plays very well and, on another day, we could come away with three points.
“Both sides would point out promising moments.
“They’ve got some decent footballers and their identity suits the players they have, they’ve got physicality and play with a good tempo, so I have a lot of respect for that.
“The fans were very good, came down in good numbers, got behind the team and were really good. Hopefully they’ve seen some encouraging signs from them.”
Neither side were able to muster a shot on target in the opening period as Millwall struggled to get talisman Zian Flemming into the game.
Antoine Semenyo and Tommy Conway both went close for the hosts before Voglsammer hammered the woodwork with a deflected strike on the stroke of half-time.
The visitors pressed for a winner in the second period as Ghana international Semenyo proved a constant handful on his return to the side.
And they should have got one in the dying stages when Weimann somehow missed the target with just goalkeeper George Long to beat from inside the six-yard box.
The result means Millwall missed the chance to follow up their impressive 2-0 win at Watford and climb into the play-off places.
Boss Gary Rowett said: “I thought they made it very difficult to play through them at times. When you’re a team that need a result, you play with a bit more energy.
“The only disappointing thing for us is after the Watford game you hope you can play with a bit more confidence. I just felt at times, and given we’re not the sort of team that can easily play through teams, we just huffed and puffed a little bit and found it very difficult to just make that last quality pass.
“Every time we got into the final third, it just seemed that there were too many bodies in the box defensively and we didn’t quite get enough numbers in there.
“Our last little action was not consistent enough and didn’t have enough quality.
“I think we created a couple of chances and they had a couple of chances.
“And Andy Weimann, an old player of mine, doesn’t normally miss from there, so we got away with that a little bit.”
