Rival manager Wayne Rooney makes Rotherham United admission

The managerless visitors created the best chances of the Championship contest and kept their first away clean sheet of the campaign in a fighting display at St Andrew's.

Manchester United and England legend Rooney, who took charge of the Blues earlier this season, said: “We were probably fortunate in the end to come away with a point.”

He described City's performance, which brought boos from home fans at the final whistle, as “very bad”.

“I thought we started the game really well for 20 minutes but we got sloppy, we got slow and we created a lot of our own problems,” he said.

“A lot of things we need to address, basics of the game like heading the ball. It was not there today. We haven’t won the game because we got complacent.”

The result left next-to-bottom Rotherham seven points adrift of safety but they can take heart from a huge improvement on last Tuesday's 4-1 loss at Hull City.

Nathan Jones, the man the Millers hope will become their next boss, was watching from the main stand.

Wayne Carlisle, in interim charge of Rotherham since the November 11 sacking of Matt Taylor, also felt his team were worthy of victory in his third match at the temporary helm.

Strikers Sam Nombe and Jordan Hugill, midfielder Ollie Rathbone and centre-half Hakeem Odoffin all had good opportunities to score.

“I’m pleased with the performance but I’m slightly disappointed that we didn’t come out with the three points,” Carlisle said.

“We wanted a reaction after the Hull game and the boys rolled up their sleeves and gave a real Rotherham United performance.”

He will now wait to see what happens in the new-boss search next week.

“I’ve got a job to do,” he said. “My most important job is keeping the guys together. I've also got to try to win games of football until someone tells me I’m not doing the job any longer.”