The European soccer season is a marathon. We freak out early over weird results and small sample sizes, only for the world to (mostly) right itself by Christmas. But once the calendar changes, we get a much better feel for what we should really be freaking out about.
Back in early January, I wrote a piece called the PANIC INDEX, in which I graded the big story lines and questions on a panic scale of 1 (remain calm, all is well) to 5 (oh god, oh god, oh god). It wasn't rocket science, but the piece had a pretty good batting average: Manchester City was indeed about to surge to a double-digit Premier League lead, Chelsea's bad close-games luck has indeed begun to turn, and Spurs' offense was indeed in trouble (until Gareth Bale was taken out of mothballs, anyway).