Football

Man City loss probably dashed Chelsea title hopes - Alonso

LONDON: Chelsea defender Marcos Alonso believes his side may have squandered their last chance to stay in the Premier League title race after they lost 1-0 to leaders Manchester City on Saturday.

Kevin De Bruyne's 70th-minute strike lifted City to 56 points from 22 matches, 13 more than second-placed Chelsea. Third-placed Liverpool, who have two games in hand including Sunday's home match against Brentford, are on 42 points.

"It's disappointing," Alonso told Chelsea's website. "It was maybe the last chance to keep on fighting for the Premier League.

"We will keep trying until the end, until it's gone mathematically, but it will be difficult now.

"We need to think about Brighton & Hove Albion in three days, win that one, keep training hard and not look at the table at this moment."

Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel raised concerns over Chelsea's inability to pose a threat to City's defence, which were echoed Spanish full back Alonso.

"The chances were there but we just lacked a bit of good decision-making in the last third to create even more chances or to score the couple of chances we had," he said.

"We had a couple of chances to go 1-0 up and we were not that far from getting something from the match.

"We expected something like this before the game but we competed well so of course we are disappointed."

Chelsea travel to Brighton on Tuesday, before hosting local rivals Tottenham Hotspur on Jan. 23.--REUTERS

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