Frank Lampard says Chelsea's 3-2 defeat to West Ham shows exactly how far they have to go in order to establish themselves at the top of the Premier League.
The Blues conceded an 89th-minute winner by Andriy Yarmolenko as they let slip the chance to move above Leicester into third place after the Foxes lost 2-1 at Everton earlier in the evening.
Chelsea had taken advantage of a disallowed West Ham goal following a VAR review with Willian converting a first-half penalty minutes later, before the Brazilian drew them level in the second half after the Hammers had taken the lead.
However, after securing back-to-back wins following the restart and with excitement building over the arrival of Timo Werner and Hakim Ziyech, Lampard held the result up as proof of what needed to be done.
"It's the story of our season," said the Chelsea boss. "It's been a good season but there have been so many of these moments. We had an opportunity today to go through but you have to do every part of the game to get results.
"If you switch off or make one or two errors then you will encourage teams. Players have to show an extra mentality to get through these games.
"I get to see this group closely and I've seen us play great games then have moments where there's the opportunity to capitalise and that's the difference at the moment. We have work to do.
"There's without a doubt a good group of players in there but then when you analyse the consistency, you feel a game like this is coming. Again, that shows there's work to do.
"If we are opening up to try and score that winning goal then we have to be prepared to run back the other way and defend. And defend better.
"We are two points ahead of Manchester United, who have been playing fantastic and are on a great run, Wolves are having a great season and they're behind us, Leicester have had a great season and we're just behind them.
"It's about perspective. We are upset because we wanted to win the game, we're footballers and we're in a good position. So there's no point in being down but I can't help but say the truth today which is that it's a game we should have won tonight."
The Blues will look to get back on track when they host another side fighting for survival as Watford visit Stamford Bridge on Saturday.
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