How long is a piece of string? It is one of those questions that feels impossible to answer definitively but one thing you can say is a lot of teams have been inconsistent.

Between second to 12th, Manchester City, Arsenal, Brighton, Fulham and Newcastle are the only sides who have won back-to-back games more than once all season, while nine of them have at some point gone three games without a win.

Many of the teams we would be expecting to be challenging for a Champions League place have underperformed this season.

Manchester City, Arsenal, Tottenham, Aston Villa, Newcastle and Manchester United all have fewer points at this stage than they did last campaign.

Aston Villa, in the Champions League this season, have one win in seven but are still only four points off second. Chelsea, in third, have two wins in six, and fourth-placed Arsenal have one in five. Manchester City have lost their past three and remain second.

Meanwhile, it would be fair to argue that Brighton, Nottingham Forest and Fulham are overachieving compared with many people’s expectations, with their points tally significantly better than at this stage last season.

Just five teams have won three matches in a row – Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea, Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest.

As we enter the busiest period of the season, there will be a lot of teams still fancying their chances of making a push for Europe.