Chelsea have one hand on the Premier League title after winning their festive war of nerves with champions Arsenal [Images] and Manchester United [Images].

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Chelsea's effortless 2-0 victory over Middlesbrough on Tuesday left Jose Mourinho's men well clear of the two clubs who have dominated English soccer over the past 10 years.

Arsenal scraped a 1-1 draw at home to Manchester City, while United were probably even luckier to draw 0-0 with Tottenham Hotspur at Old Trafford after Spurs' midfielder Pedro Mendes was denied a goal despite his long shot clearly crossing the line in the final minute.

Chelsea have now rattled up 55 points, lost just one match and conceded only eight goals in their 22 league games in a remarkable centenary season under new boss Jose Mourinho.

Arsenal have 48 points, with United an even more distant third on 44 and scrapping for an automatic place in next season's Champions League.

The Premier League's big three had faced a frenetic run of four matches over a 10-day period between Christmas and the start of the New Year, with the burning question being which of the trio would crack.

No-one blinked as all three sides won their first three matches of the festive season.

However, the inexorable pressure applied by Mourinho, who has expertly rotated a large and gifted squad, finally took its toll.

CHELSEA'S MARCH

While their rivals floundered, Chelsea swept to victory with Didier Drogba [Images] signalling his readiness to take over the goalscoring burden recently shouldered by attacking midfielders Arjen Robben, Damien Duff and Joe Cole.

Chelsea's victory summed up why they have become the bookmakers' clear favourites to win the club's first league championship for 50 years and only the second in their history.

Mourinho, whose disciplined, tough-defending Porto side won the Champions League last May, has been able to build another defence that is difficult to breach and an attack with the class required to score from any position.

Their lead means that two defeats, at least, will need to be inflicted on a side brimming with confidence in both England [Images] and Europe, where they face a Champions League knockout round tie against Barcelona.

They must still face Arsenal and United a second time.

Having beaten United 1-0 at Stamford Bridge and drawn 2-2 at Highbury, however, Mourinho knows his men have what it takes to at least match their opponents in head-to-head confrontations.

The challenge facing Chelsea is to keep that consistency going, despite the distractions of Europe and the FA Cup which starts in earnest this weekend.

Arsenal and United know they must be ready to seize their chance should Chelsea's relative experience in a title run-in begin to tell.

Arsene Wenger and Alex Ferguson will also take heart from the fact that Chelsea have yet to suffer a blip, as their sides have done, and that the Premier League trophy is usually decided at Easter rather than Christmas.

However, as Chelsea have already demonstrated, a team put together at a cost of around 200 million pounds since July 2003 is no ordinary team.

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