Top flight rising above discontent of winter

We are at that stage of the season where normally people start complaining about the state of football's top tier in this country.

Perhaps its a general misery brought on by the dark evenings and foul weather, but I seem to recall a general sense of disillusionment at about this point during the past couple of seasons.

I tend to start echoing the same old radio phone-in complaints about the dominance of the 'big four' and the predictability of the Premier League.

This season though, I get this general feeling of malaise has still to hit, or at least personally I am full of positive thoughts about what the Premiership has to offer.

I know the elite clubs have once again risen inevitably to occupy the top four places in the table but both between the quartet and down the rest of the league there is a competitive unpredictability that has been so painstakingly absent in previous campaigns.

Almost all the teams outside the top six or seven are a matter of a couple of bad results away from relegation and a run of good results can propel a side up the table faster than Timo Glock on dry tyres.

It seems anyone outside Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool can beat each other as even the new boys are giving it a real go.

And who cares about the fact that four clubs are head and shoulders above the rest when they produce matches of the intensity and quality of the Arsenal-Man United game on Saturday.

Arsenal's against-the-odds win arguably deseves them to regain the moniker of 'title contenders' that was stripped from them when the lost to Stoke.

Once again all four look like having a genuine tilt at the top prize and few could confidently predict exactly which of the big four will be at the summit come May.

Even more encouragingly, none of the elite clubs are playing with a mundane or functional style that is purely results-driven - with Chelsea in particular revolutionised into an entertaining attacking force.

I don’t know if this strange sense of optimism will last, or the disillusionment will simply kick in at a later stage, but at the moment I am enjoying every minute of the current campaign.