Sonia Bompastor conceded the WSL title race is "probably over" after Chelsea's defeat to Arsenal gave Manchester City the chance to go nine points clear at London City on Sunday, live on Sky Sports.
The Blues fell to a second defeat in four WSL games as Arsenal deservedly ended a run of seven years without a win at Chelsea through second-half goals from Beth Mead and Mariona Caldentey.
That leaves City, who have won 11 straight games since an opening-day defeat at Stamford Bridge, with the opportunity to move the equivalent of three wins ahead of their nearest rivals by the end of the weekend - enough for Bompastor to all-but throw in the towel on her side's title chances.
"Today we understand the situation, we know the title race is probably gone, but our mentality is to fight until the very end. We will never give up," she told BBC Sport. "Now we have to focus on getting points and staying in that second position and doing the best we can.
"There is a big gap and if City win tomorrow then the gap is nine points. They are in control and if they perform at their best it will be a difficult gap to close. My job is to make sure I lift everyone up and we take the learnings and we go into the next game ready to perform.
"We will have one or two days really low but we will have a good conversation, as usual, and from that everyone will be lifted."
The Chelsea head coach admitted her side had not been "aggressive" enough as they were outfought on home soil but refused to blame her players and said she was responsible for her pre-match messaging failing to land.
"In every game we have a game plan, most of the time it stays on our game model and sometimes there are some specific things.
"Defensively we left too many spaces for them, they were too comfortable on the ball and we were not aggressive enough.
"Those were two things we had in the game plan and we didn't execute well enough, but it's my responsibility to make sure the players have clarity. It's not on the players, it's on myself."
Clarity was something which Arsenal head coach Renee Slegers felt had made the difference for her side, who could have won by an even wider margin had they made the most of a number of early opportunities before finally finding their clinical touch after the break.
"When the moment is there for this team, when it really has to happen they do it every single time. There's a lot of strength in this team. One of our strengths today was going into the game with a lot of clarity, they kept it going with clear minds to help them make good decisions and focus on the task.
"We have a win against Aston Villa but didn't manage to win the two games against Man Utd, where we did a lot of good things. We just couldn't do it in the final third.
"We've been working on that; we've proven to ourselves how we can be composed and that wins us the game. It's so well-deserved for the players, they've been so composed and invested. It's been very constructive, solution-based and full of belief."