United currently boast a five-point advantage over Chelsea, who moved into second place thanks to Sunday's 1-0 win over Middlesbrough and are a point better off than Arsenal.

The reigning champions are due in London on Saturday, April 26 and Grant predicted that his side would still be hunting down United - just as they have already done with Arsenal and Liverpool.

He said: "I don't think that each of the three teams will take all the points. Since I've been here, we've been chasing after other teams.

"First it was five teams, then four. We've gone past Liverpool and now Arsenal. We have to keep winning and hoping that, when United come here, it will be important."

For that to happen Chelsea must first overcome a fixture congestion problem brought on by television schedules, with a home clash against Wigan on Monday, April 14 then followed by a trip to Everton 72 hours later.

Chelsea have vowed to carry on campaigning to have the Everton game moved back to its original slot of April 19.

Grant said: "I don't understand why we need to play on a Thursday. It's unfair.

"When we come to the end of the season, it should be equal for all the teams. We need to fight in any way that we can to make it a fair decision."

Chelsea's main priority this week is to return from Istanbul on Wednesday night with a favourable score from their Champions League quarter-final first leg with Fenerbahce.

The two teams have never met before in European competition but midfielder Michael Essien can boast a 100% record against the Turkish champions having played against them while at Lyon.

He said: "We won both games so I have a good record against them and I hope we can keep that up. Their home ground is a special place and the atmosphere can be fantastic.

"Their fans are very noisy so we will just have to close our ears, focus on our own game and do all we can to keep a clean sheet."

That they managed to shut out Middlesbrough was largely down to luck as Gareth Southgate's side hit the woodwork no fewer than three times in the second half.

Substitute Afonso Alvez was the main culprit, striking a post and then the bar after he had planted a free header wide, as Boro left London knowing they could have replicated their 1-1 draw at Arsenal earlier in the month at the very least.

Southgate, who expects to lose striker Mido for the rest of the season due to a hernia operation, challenged his players to be more ruthless in future.

He said: "It shouldn't be a mental barrier coming to places like this because all we spoke about all week was how we could hurt them and score goals against them.

"We are growing as a team but the biggest thing we have to change at the club is our mentality. We can't go away from here thinking 'oh, we have only lost 1-0 at Chelsea' - we should come to places believing we can get results.

"One of the reasons we are where we are in the table is because of that mentality, which has to change."

Southgate will not have to wait long to see whether his words will have any effect as they host Manchester United at the weekend.

He said: "I'm not that fussed about the title race but we do have a humdinger of a game next week against Manchester United.

"You look at the way they are playing at the moment and nobody will give us too much of a chance.

"We have shown in recent weeks that we can compete with the best, and if we can stop being an on-our-day team then we will be heading in the right direction.