Chelsea's title hopes still alive: Mourinho

With Chelsea going through a nightmarish start to the season, manager Jose Mourinho says his club's title hopes would already be gone if they were playing in some other league.

Crystal Palace beat the defending English Premier League champions (EPL) 2-1 at Stamford Bridge on Saturday which means Chelsea are now eight points adrift of leaders Manchester City after four outings each.

"Four points in four matches is a very bad start, in another league I would say game over. In the Premier League I don't say game over," Mourinho was quoted as saying by bbc.com.

"We have eight points less than the leader. This is the Premier League and I think it's getting more difficult than before. Two or three far from good," he said.

Goals from Bakary Sako and Joel Ward meant Chelsea suffered only their second defeat in Mourinho's 100 EPL games at home in charge at Chelsea.

Colombian forward Radamel Falcao restored parity for Chelsea, but a lapse of concentration at the back led to Palace finding the winner.

The Blues boss refused to speak on individual performances, but said some players did not put their best foot forward.

"I'm not happy. I cannot say that I had 11 players performing at the same time," he said.

"Two or three of them, their individual performance was far from good."