Only two of the ‘Big Six’ are currently sat in the top four positions in the table. They have a combined 114 points from 70 games, 15 points fewer than at the same stage last season.
The Premier League’s joint leaders, Liverpool and Tottenham, are averaging slightly above two points per game and have won just over half their games, figures that would usually only be enough to scrape a top-four finish.
Naturally, there are idiosyncratic reasons for each club’s difficulties. But the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic underpins all six cases, with a congested fixture list leading to fatigue, injuries, and squad rotation on a scale never before seen in the English top-flight.