In the early morning of December 8 (Vietnam time), the last 2 matches of round 15 of the Premier League ended with Tottenham and Newcastle's defeats against West Ham and Everton.
This is the fifth consecutive round that Tottenham have not won (D1 L4) so that from the excitement of the beginning of the season - with 10 unbeaten matches, coach Ange Postecoglou and his team have dropped to 5th place in the rankings.
The defeat also caused Tottenham to miss the opportunity to catch up with Manchester City's points, when the defending champion lost to Aston Villa and also went 4 consecutive matches without a win. Rarely has Man City fallen into such a period of decline in the Pep Guardiola era.
But that also helped the two arch-rivals Manchester get closer together, when Man City came in 4th and Manchester United - the team that beat Chelsea in this round, came in 6th. The last time the two teams were so close apart was in the 2022-23 season, when Man City won the championship and Man United were in 3rd place, but the gap in points was up to 14 points.
Previously, in the 2020-2021 season, Man City won the championship and Man United were runners-up, but the gap was also up to 12. Currently, the two teams are only 3 points behind each other.
But that means they have been left behind by the top team - Arsenal, with a gap of 6 and 9 points respectively.
Aston Villa's presence in 3rd place was surprising, but as they are one of the teams with the most goals after 15 rounds, that achievement is worthy of coach Unai Emery and his team.
Liverpool maintained their 2nd place in the rankings, while their city rival Everton (10 points) escaped the red light after the win over Newcastle. Everton were previously deducted 10 points for financial violations.
Premier League rankings after 15 rounds
