5 Matches to Define the Premier League Season Before New Year
December is always a crazy month in English football: Just as other major nations are preparing for a nice winter break and a few weeks away from action, the Premier League is cranking up into high gear.
No less than six full matchdays of fixtures will be played by each top-flight side during the month, while the likes of Liverpool, Chelsea and Spurs will play a massive eight games during 2014's final 31 days, owing to their League Cup quarter-final match and ongoing European action.
Jam-packed a schedule as it is, we can identify a handful of games to look forward to over the next few weeks which sum up the Premier League in a nutshell, showing every major talking point and storyline in the top flight before the madness of the January transfer window ensues.
Champions League Place Race: Arsenal vs. Southampton, Dec. 3
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One of the most interesting and ongoing battles each year is, of course, the race for the top four and the Champions League places it brings. Huge income levels, massive exposure and the chance to play alongside and against the best in the world game all have big appeal to fans, chairmen and players alike.
Southampton's great start to the season has put them in the top three, but they are about to start a tough run of games; they lost to Manchester City and now face plenty of last season's top-half sides before the new year.
Their very next game is against top-four veterans Arsenal, who themselves have been fairly poor this term and sit sixth at the moment, six points behind Saints. Whichever side can rouse themselves to take victory in this game might tell us whether Saints are the real deal and can break into the top four this year or whether we can expect the status quo to be largely maintained.
The Relegation Struggle: QPR vs. Burnley, Dec. 6
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Right at the other end of the table, last season's three promoted sides from the Championship occupy the bottom three spots in this season's Premier League: Leicester City bottom, Burnley and Queens Park Rangers a single point better off.
Those three make up four of the worst defences in the league this season, while only Aston Villa have scored fewer than Burnley.
QPR host Burnley at the weekend, a match that both clubs will have identified as crucial to take points from—both for their own survival hopes and also to prevent their rivals from gaining ground above them. Things are very close at the foot of the table, with three points separating the bottom seven sides, so every positive result is vital over December.
Rebuilding: Manchester United vs. Liverpool, Dec. 14
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Two great rivals, both football clubs and cities, meet in one of the league's most important and watched games of any Premier League season on December 14.
Liverpool travel across to Manchester to face United, resurgent of late under Louis van Gaal and hoping to prove they can make it into the top four this season after their fall last term. A restructured team still needs further additions, particularly at the back, but at home, they have won five out of seven so far.
The Reds, meanwhile, have been on a terrible run—but a win against Stoke City last time out will give them hope of turning things around. The Reds were runners-up in the league last season but linger down in 11th this season, five points adrift of United in fourth.
If Liverpool are serious about getting back into the top four this term, they cannot afford to let United increase that lead to eight points or so.
It should be a titanic battle between two rivals who are still searching for the formula to get back to the top.
Derbies and Doubters: Newcastle United vs. Sunderland, Dec. 21
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One of the best spectacles of the Premier League season is the huge number of derbies and rivalries, with the north-east battle between Newcastle United and Sunderland one of the noisiest, most ferocious and isolated battles around. It inevitably doesn't mean too much to the league outcome beyond the local hostilities, but it remains a great, spectacular event nonetheless.
It also provides a glimpse into one of those peculiarities of modern-day football: the demand for a managerial change when results don't go right, only for the boss to be almost a hero again a few weeks later.
Alan Pardew's poor form with Newcastle saw banners, protests and everything else call to get rid of him; Newcastle then went and racked up six successive victories and currently sit in ninth. Sunderland boss Gus Poyet had managed just two wins in 11 in all competitions by the end of October and was similarly coming under scrutiny...and since then has taken Sunderland to four games unbeaten, including a 0-0 draw against Chelsea at the weekend.
How quickly things can change. Which manager will be the hero and villain after the Tyne-Wear derby just before Christmas? One set of fans will be left unhappy.
The New Invincibles?: Southampton vs. Chelsea, Dec. 28
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We cannot go through the month which defines the season as a whole without mentioning the team looking most likely to win the title, Chelsea.
Still unbeaten as we head into December, Jose Mourinho's side have looked balanced, strong and clinical, winning at home and abroad more often than not and building themselves up a six-point lead over their nearest challengers.
Chelsea face Tottenham, Newcastle, Hull City, Stoke City, West Ham United and Southampton in the league before the turn of the year, with that final fixture being the 19th game, the halfway point of the campaign. Should Chelsea remain unbeaten past that point and into 2015, there will be renewed calls to see whether they can last the entire league season unbeaten, just as Arsenal did in 2003-04.
