Manuel Pellegrini praised West Ham United’s positive attitude in their goalless draw against Aston Villa on Monday night.

The Hammers extended their unbeaten run in the Premier League to four games with the Villa Park stalemate, despite having defender Arthur Masuaku sent off shortly after the hour mark.

Pellegrini’s side continued to attack even after Masuaku’s second booking, and arguably had their best spells of the game while down to 10 men, and that was something that remained with the boss after the full-time whistle.

Speaking to the club website, he said: “I think that we gave a good performance, first because we came here and from the first minute of the game until the last we tried to win.

“After that, with 10 men, we continued trying to have the ball, and trying to have the opportunity to win the game. We didn’t just defend so I’m very happy with a lot of things tonight.

“I don’t know if we played better with 10 men, but the important thing was that it didn’t seem we had 10 players.

“We couldn’t do that, but with 10 men it’s a good result.”

Masuaku saw red after challenges on Frederic Guilbert and then substitute Ahmed Elmohamady, but Pellegrini didn’t agree with the decision given by referee Mike Dean, which was the 102nd red card brandished in his career.

Pellegrini said: “It was a typical sending off when you play away, with the pressure of the fans in every foul. I don’t think it was a yellow card [the second foul on Elmohamady] but playing away, normally it’s very easy for him to send him off.

“I don’t want to talk about the referee, I prefer to talk about our team. We played a very good game, we had the personality to try to come here and win the game from the beginning and the last action of the game we had a very clear chance to score.

“We played with 10 men exactly as we would with 11. We tried to defend well, we tried to continue scoring goals so I’m very happy with the performance of the team; with the personality of the team and if you’re playing away and you cannot win, then don’t lose it, and we did that while having one player less.”