I made the point recently that it was a good time to look at the league after a third of the games had been played, but now the next most important time is, as ever, Christmas.

It’s not exactly that presents are going to be given out based on league positions at that time, but it always gives a good feeling if you are near the top at the halfway stage.

With five games to go until that marker the queue to get in line for Santa Claus, in football terms, has been developing.

Chelsea have been camped on the doorstep since day one and there is no way they will not be at the front of the queue after the next five games.

Interestingly, the bigger clubs, the ones with the money, the ones with the bigger squads, and who need to be at the front of the queue, have been gradually making their moves.

The two Manchester clubs have stepped it up and Arsenal are starting to pick up some away points.

They will all be slightly annoyed at one or two who are stopping their passage through to join Chelsea, and will no doubt be surprised by some of them, particularly Southampton.

Let’s be fair, no one in the football world, as well as our own supporters, would expect us to be in this position even in normal times because of the difference in the size of the financial incomes, let alone after the outgoings we had at the beginning of the season.

We are joined up there by West Ham.

Sam Allardyce will be able to enjoy his turkey because, if the majority of his supporters had had their way at the beginning of this season, he wouldn’t have been there to join in the party. He has proved them all wrong and is now the fan’s favourite.

The other surprise in lots of people’s eyes is the consistency of Swansea, particularly as their manager, Garry Monk, is in his first role as a number one and it gives us a bit more interest because he was a player at Southampton in his youth and has done a good job.

I suppose there are others that would be hoping to be in the front line and are certainly not looking like it at present and will have to make a big effort to push through. They are Liverpool, Tottenham and Everton. They are the sorts that you would normally get in a queue saying ‘excuse me, please move out the way, we need to be up there.’ They will have to do a lot more than they have so far to achieve what they would be normally expected to do.

There is always, of course, a few who can’t afford to join the battle for the front of the queue and will be just happy to wait for the sales to come around.

Looking at the league table at present it’s fairly obvious what the top flight is all about.

The bottom three are those clubs that were promoted last season.

They haven’t got the size of grounds, they haven’t got the finance, they haven’t got the big squad and if they are still in this position at Christmas will be just fighting to move up to fourth bottom in the second half.

Having said all of this there are surprisingly very small gaps between midtable and the bottom.

In fact, anyone getting two wins in a row could look on paper more comfortable.

This of course makes the whole situation more interesting and it’s never good to see the obvious teams lauding it and that’s why it’s good that some of the bigger ones are having to look over their shoulder.

The problem of course is that because of the size of their clubs and the finances at their disposal they have bigger squads.

At this time of the year injuries pop up a bit more often, as well as suspensions, and the clubs that have kept them out of the front of the queue so far begin to suffer because of it.

This is beginning to happen to Saints and is exacerbated by the extra fixtures at this time of the year.

Those games are great for spectators for whom part of their holiday plan is to roll up to the ground and watch their team play. I well remember Boxing Day games where you could smell the cigars.

And if anybody thinks the current Christmas schedule is busy I remember over Easter having to play Good Friday, Saturday and Easter Monday – three games in four days.

I learned to my cost how tough that can be.

In my first season in charge of the club we went into Easter in a comfortable position and came out looking over our shoulder, and eventually got relegated.

We always had to accept this but you know it is difficult for the foreign managers and players.

As we have heard from Ronald Koeman recently a lot of the other countries actually take a break at Christmas time.

It is difficult – do you try to keep the smaller group of professionals happy or the spectators who, after all, the game is all about?