Louis van Gaal has dismissed Bayern Munich's chances of catching leaders Borussia Dortmund, despite their 5-3 win at Stuttgart on Sunday.
Dutchman Van Gaal believes that is too big a gap to make up and he has instead targeted a runners-up finish.
Van Gaal said: "Dortmund are a long way ahead, but we can make up a four-point gap to second place."
A hat-trick from former Stuttgart striker Mario Gomez helped Bayern to all three points this afternoon, although the home side put up a brave fight, despite trailing 3-0 at half-time with Thomas Muller and Franck Ribery also on target for the visitors.
A double from Martin Harnik either side of Gomez's second and third goals and a further consolation from Christian Gentner allowed Stuttgart to at least salvage some pride from their 11th defeat of the season.
"We scored some good goals from some good moves, but there's no way we should be conceding as many goals," said Van Gaal.
"I know that, and the players know that. It's often been the case, and it's something that has to improve."
Ribery was also disappointed with Bayern's defensive sloppiness.
"Conceding three goals isn't good," said the France playmaker.
"We should have kept it much tighter after going 5-1 up, we should have kept possession and hit them on the break.
"We have to sit down and talk about that, and it's important, because we've often had this problem after half-time. But the three points are very important."
Stuttgart boss Bruno Labbadia, in his first league game in charge, found some positives but admitted his second-from-bottom side were in the middle of a relegation dogfight.
He said: "The result completely fails to reflect the way we played.
"We definitely made too many individual errors, and that has to stop. But we did good things too, and it was obvious the team is determined to go for results.
"There's a lot of work to do, otherwise we wouldn't be where we are in the table. We'll probably be battling relegation until the very last day. It'll be a relegation dogfight, pure and simple."
