Second-place Manchester United are a massive 13 points behind leaders Manchester City and a slip-up at home at Burnley on Boxing Day would make their chances of chasing them as good as over.
Mata scored both goals in the 2-2 draw at Leicester as the ten-man Foxes grabbed a 94th minute equaliser with the last kick of the game.
The Spaniard is well aware that their title hopes are blowing up in their faces – and he’s put that down to the fact the team aren’t natural killers of games.
Mata said: “Now we feel frustrated and angry but we need to keep going and just think about the next game and be determined to finish it with a much better feeling.
“We didn’t kill Leicester off and we should have killed it off.
“It’s easy to say now but if, instead of drawing, we had won again we would have been saying that it was a fantastic game.
“We’d be saying that we came back and we did the most difficult thing which is to come back and score twice after they went ahead. But that’s football, and in the last second they scored.
“But we have the feeling we should have killed the game before. It feels like a defeat.”
“We got a point but it feels like a defeat because we were so close to winning and had chances to kill the game. Plus, they had one less player so it feels like we lost.”
Sean Dyche’s Burnley who will be hoping to rain on United’s parade yet again and make it a miserable Christmas for an increasingly grumpy Jose Mourinho.
Mata added: “I’m feeling disappointed because the goals were not enough to win but at that particular moment they gave us a lift.”
