Mourinho says his Chelsea side will battle to the very end

But he admits Manchester United are in pole position after the Blues fell five points adrift of the leaders.

"It is not over because mathematically there is a chance," said Mourinho.

"When the chance is there, we have to believe but it is almost lost, almost. They have to lose two games and we have to win all three. They are very close."

It looked as though it would be a very profitable day for Chelsea.

At one stage, they led Bolton 2-1 thanks to a Salomon Kalou strike and an own goal from Jussi Jaaskelainen, while Manchester United trailed 2-0 at Everton.

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But by the end of 90 minutes, the Blues had been pegged back to 2-2 and United had scored four times to extend their lead at the top of the table.

"It was an emotional game, although it did not have much quality," added Mourinho, who started with Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard on the bench.

"There was maybe a bit too much emotion on our part but there was a lot of heart.

"We put them under pressure and we were close to getting a third goal."

Chelsea's remaining Premiership games are against Arsenal (away), Manchester United (home) and Everton (home).

But their priority now is Tuesday's Champions League semi-final, second leg against Liverpool at Anfield.

"I feel sad but I have a big game on Tuesday night and that's a good thing in this situation," commented Mourinho. "We have no time to be sad."

The Blues lead 1-0 from the first leg and will be without the injured Ricardo Carvalho and Michael Ballack.

We are desperate to get into the Uefa Cup and delighted to get another point Sammy Lee Bolton's assistant manager

Bolton, meanwhile, went into the game with speculation mounting that manager Sam Allardyce is poised to quit the club at the end of the season.

Afterwards, his assistant, Sammy Lee, insisted it was business as usual.

"At the moment, as far as we are concerned, it is only speculation," he said. "As soon as we know anything about that, we'll let everyone know."

Lee said Bolton's main concern at the moment was clinching a Uefa Cup berth.

"We are just trying to get as high up the table as we possibly can," he said.