Chelsea go top for Christmas

To be honest, I am amazed there was ever any doubt regards Chelsea being top. They've looked to be the best team in the league to me, have lost only once, yet a defeat by more than one goal at Stoke last night would have seen Man City at the summit for Christmas.

In the end they won the game 2-0 and so go in with a three point lead over City who themselves have a three point lead over Man United who are now third, but watching some of their recent performances I wonder how.

Assuming those three ended the season in the top three places there would be a very interesting challenge for the fourth Champions League place. Big Sam has it right now with West Ham who are a point ahead of Southampton.

Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool are thought to be ready to mount a challenge, but I'm not so sure. Arsenal did get a point at Anfield on Sunday but they were, for the most part of the game, very poor and this might just be the season when Wenger doesn't achieve a top four finish.

Unfortunately, looking at the other end of the table, we've found ourselves back in the bottom three after just a week outside, and for that we can again lay the finger of blame at our former player Charlie Austin.

Will he get an England cap? Harry Redknapp is nodding in approval at such a suggestion and it is fair to say that every time Charlie takes a step up he soon gets on with what he does best and that's scoring goals.

He got a hat trick on Saturday as they came from two behind to beat West Brom 3-2. He now has 11 Premier League goals and that's a total currently only being beaten by Sergio Aguero and Diego Costa. QPR are hitting the panic button and are trying to agree a new deal with him before he opts to make a move to a bigger club where, if he goes, he'll do what he always does and score goals.

It's so tight at the bottom that this win lifted them from 18th to 15th although they did drop a place on Sunday when Sunderland went to St. James' Park and beat Newcastle for a third successive season with Adam Johnson scoring the winner.

What a record he has in that fixture. He's scored in all three of those wins and is actually a Newcastle fan from a family of Mackems. At least he's made his family happy for Christmas.

Hull lost again so they are still below us, and Leicester were always going to be bottom no matter what happened. When they drew with us they then had 9 points from 7 games. Manager Nigel Pearson was so disappointed and said in his after match interview that he felt his team should now have 11 points.

I bet he didn't think they still wouldn't have 11 points going into Christmas but that's the case and isn't it a fact that only two clubs have been bottom at Christmas and survived in the Premier League?

Terry Robinson's gone at the King Power. He was responsible for recruitment and looks, for now, that he's the scapegoat.

Two more games this year, ours against Liverpool and Man City, before we head to Newcastle on the day the transfer window opens.

I wonder which club will spend the most money in this window. Will Harry Redknapp be leaning out of one on the last day doing interviews? Who will spend the most money?

What I do know is that Spurs are the first to make a signing. They've today confirmed that DeAndre Yedlin will join them in January from Seattle Sounders.

All the pre-Christmas results and stats are below along with the leading goalscorers, each club's red and yellow card count and the Boxing Day fixtures.