It was assumed during the summer that last season’s top four would inevitably remain the same this time around. A very definite gulf was perceived between the rest of the league and the old cabal of Arsenal, Chelsea, and the Manchester clubs.

It hasn’t quite worked out like that, though. Not entirely. City and Arsenal have comfortably been the best two sides so far, certainly, while United have earned reasonable results despite playing some truly awful football, like a closing-time drunk staggering blindly through a bar, but still somehow managing to achieve his end goal of getting out the door anyway.

But Chelsea have neither played well nor got results. Indeed, last season’s champions seem incapable of beating anybody at the moment and currently sit way down in 16th with close to a third of the season gone — a full 14 points behind the leading pair. And this presents an opportunity for others to exploit; for the next clutch of teams, the door to the Champions League is not as firmly closed as we presumed.

Currently that bonus spot is occupied by third-placed Leicester City, but it is hardly going out on a limb to suggest that they won’t remain there come May. Jamie Vardy’s run of scoring in nine consecutive games and counting is truly remarkable, and his goals alone have earned his team 14 points in that time, but that won’t go on indefinitely. Indeed, there will likely come a time during the season when Vardy fails to score for a month or two, and his team will slowly drift to the middle of the table.

Which leaves us looking at the usual contenders: Liverpool, Tottenham and, at a push, Everton. As expected, Jurgen Klopp’s arrival at Anfield has brought fresh energy to a team which had reached a stasis under Brendan Rogers, with last week’s 3-1 win at Stamford Bridge their clear highlight of the season so far.

After one victory in 11 fixtures, Liverpool have now won three in a row (although of those only the aforementioned success against Chelsea was in the league). We are seeing the first sprouting shoots of what pundits lovingly refer to as momentum and once a trip to City is out the way in a couple of weeks’ time, a relatively comfortable run of fixtures could see that continue to grow before the going gets tough again in the new year.

If Liverpool can get themselves into January in a strong position, they should be considered favourites for a top-four finish. Philippe Coutinho is the league’s best player outside the current Champions League clubs, and Christian Benteke is beginning to suggest he might give them the same form which carried Aston Villa during his time there.

Tottenham, meanwhile, have quietly gone about putting together the league’s longest, ongoing unbeaten streak. In the past they have been all noise, hubris and disappointment, but under Mauricio Pochettino they have abandoned their policy of transfer roulette and stopped telling everyone who’ll listen that each new season is the year they finally re-establish themselves as a top club, and just focused on what matters instead.

They are now a much more self- aware club, and much easier to respect because of it. Poor finishing was costly for them in the early part of this season but they now sit second in the form table and sixth in the real table, and will be the side most likely to benefit if Liverpool’s earlier uncertainties return.

They will, however, need to consistently be more like the side which won 4-1 over City than the opponents who started Klopp’s Anfield tenure with an insipid 0-0 draw. The outcome of today’s north London derby against fiercest rivals Arsenal might indicate much about the months which lie ahead.

The outsiders are Everton. Stars like Ross Barkley and Romelu Lukaku would embellish any of their rivals, but the squad overall looks too thin to reach the top four without the rest contriving to fall apart and clear the way for them. Don’t rule it out, but don’t stake your house on it happening either.

But there are 26 games to go. The biggest surprise of all would be for Chelsea to fail in that time to recover enough to at least take the spot they will see as rightfully theirs. For all the good signs at Liverpool, Spurs and Everton, the safest bet would still be on the same old top four being there at the end of the season. But the longer Chelsea’s misery continues, the more confident the others will become.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Hugo Saye is an English journalist who spent nine months in Jamaica shadowing 2012-2013 National Premier League champions Harbour View FC, where he spoke openly with stars of both sport and politics and discovered the importance of football in the Caribbean island, which formed the background of his book, Of Garrisons and Goalscorers.