Chelsea's chances of winning this season's Premier League title took a massive hit today according to manager Andre Villas-Boas.
The Blues were denied maximum points in the West London Boxing Day derby as Fulham held them to a 1-1 draw in a match that took a long while to kick into gear.
Juan Mata's 47th minute strike was canceled out by Clint Dempsey's close range finish less than ten minutes later to leave Chelsea 11 points in arrears of both Manchester City and Manchester United and the task of reeling that in appears to be too difficult according to Villas-Boas.
"The difference between us and the top will be big.
"With City and United continuing to get the points they are getting at the moment, it'll be difficult.
"That is the perspective we have to make at the moment: it's difficult. It's not impossible. You cannot say that.
"But we have to focus on our position at the moment and make a real assessment. Maybe the Premier League is over for us at the moment.
"We'd targeted the December fixtures as an ideal situation to find out what would happen in the Premier League. We continue to do that.
"There is always tension for you to get results in a massive club like this one.
"You have to be real. You cannot live under false expectations when the gap is this big.""There's no big drama in terms of how we look at things. But you have to be sufficiently real," he said.
