 Ending as it had started, the Premier League is still topped by Chelsea, ominously so for their big-four rivals; the Blues really are firing on all cylinders with Didier Drogba looking unstoppable.
Boasting a 100% record for the month, notching eight goals in their three fixtures, the West London club are five points clear of nearest rivals Manchester United.
United were one of the three teams that Carlo Ancelotti’s men brushed aside, a 1-0 victory starting November perfectly for the Italian, with a 3-0 demolition of Arsenal the perfect way to end the month.
The Champions League challenge of London neighbours Tottenham gains in credence with each passing fixture, none more so than the emphatic 9-1 defeat of Wigan, where Jermain Defoe came only the third player to score five in a Premiership fixture.
On an interesting side-note, in an age where foreign players are the majority, all three men to have grabbed a five-goal haul - Andy Cole, Alan Shearer and Defoe - are English.
Liverpool’s woes continued, with a Champions League exit to add to their erratic domestic form, but a victory in the Merseyside derby lifted Rafa Benitez’s men into fifth, though Man City lurk behind with a game in hand and the Reds are still some 13 points adrift of the league leaders.
Talking of City, they maintained their bizarre drawing streak, which has now been extended to seven successive top-flight draws, but remain well positioned in amongst the group of teams behind the top two.
Remarkably, unfancied Stoke are just two points behind Mark Hughes’ sky blues in ninth, level on points with Steve Bruce’s Sunderland - each of the teams in red and white will be delighted with the opening they’ve made to the campaign.
Down the bottom, and Portsmouth remain rooted, seven points adrift of safety, though their survival is far from a foregone conclusion.
West Ham succeeded in leapfrogging Gary Megson’s Bolton, thus exiting the relegation zone, and now sit two points ahead of the Trotters. David Moyes’ Everton sit just a point further up the table, very much in the relegation mix-up as it stands.
With the ‘usual suspects’ in the dogfight, newly-promoted outfits Birmingham and Burnley find themselves eleventh and twelfth respectively, though just six points separate eighth and seventeenth.
With the table now taking shape, albeit surprisingly in some instances, the festive period will prove pivotal for every team. A sustained run of form could lift a team clear of the doom and gloom at the bottom end of the table, while those teams intending on launching title tilts will hope to drop as few points as possible during a busy schedule.
Everything is finely balanced in the league and the busy month that lays ahead should go some way to determining a few things: there will be managerial casualties, there will be varying levels of spending in the New Year sales and there will be crises at several underachieving clubs.
So while we enter the holiday period, let’s all put our feet up and enjoy what should be a highly entertaining month of top-flight football.
The monthly Premier League roundup comes to us courtesy of Lee Price at football-previews.co.uk.
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