Arsenal, Chelsea or Tottenham Hotspur: Who will be Kings of London when the season ends?

Chelsea: 4th place, 32 points after 19 games

Chelsea players celebrating during their 2-0 win over Tottenham last Sunday

Why they will top the trio

Despite a bumpy start, Frank Lampard has his young guns firing and full of confidence. Fikayo Tomori (22) has settled like a duck to water at the heart of their backline, while combination play between Mason Mount (20) and the club's top goalscorer Tammy Abraham (22) has been a joy to watch.

Reece James (20) is seizing the opportunity to assert his own first-team credentials as Cesar Azpilicueta's long-term replacement, while Callum Hudson-Odoi (19) and Christian Pulisic has shown flashes of their individual brilliance too.

Despite their young core, they possess title-winning experience and there's a real sense of camaraderie within the squad too. Seasoned stars including N'Golo Kante, captain Azpilicueta and Willian are invaluable, while their team is the closest to a formidable collective unit of the trio.

Why they will not

Their 4-0 thrashing by Manchester United on the opening weekend might have been harsh but is by no means forgotten. They conceded 16 goals in their next six league games and still have tendencies to concede preventable opportunities - leaving Kepa Arrizabalaga prone to unforgiving criticism too often.

Before their derby win, they had won just two of seven matches (all comps) and needed a 2-1 victory against Lille to secure passage into the UCL last-16 as Group H runners-up. They face Bundesliga champions Bayern in February and March with a quarter-final berth at stake. Although they boast recent success in meetings against the Bavarians, it's clear they are underdogs against a resurgent side who cruised through the group stages.

Despite discussing their more experienced players, they equally have a number of key men who aren't as suited to playing in such a high-pressure environment and dealing with various situations when things aren't going so well.

Lampard is ambitious and will be keen to warn against overconfidence, but they haven't yet displayed an ability to win ugly and don't really have a reliable plan B if they're losing their way in games. They've already had a little wobble, so who is to say that doesn't continue or re-occur in 2020 - especially if they get their transfer business wrong next month?

A lot has been said about the need for general defensive reinforcements, like Leicester's Ben Chilwell and Nathan Ake (Bournemouth, £40m buyback option), but would they target attacking players as a more prominent issue to resolve? They need to take the goalscoring load off Abraham, meaning more minutes and responsibility for Michy Batshuayi. Or, being tempted to dip into the market for a creative alternative - Crystal Palace's Wilfried Zaha and Jadon Sancho at Dortmund have both been heavily linked.