The 2018-19 Premier League season reached its halfway stage this week as the penultimate gameweek of the calendar year threw up goals galore and a couple of surprise results.
Liverpool saw their lead at the top grow to six points courtesy of their 4-0 win over Newcastle United, with Manchester City dropping down to third following defeat to Leicester City.
Tottenham Hotspur are now the leaders' closest challengers having made it 11 goals in two games with a 5-0 win over Bournemouth, while Everton also hit five in their victory at struggling Burnley.
Manchester United continued their recent revival by beating Huddersfield Town and Chelsea edged past Watford to consolidate their place in the top four, with Arsenal dropping points away to Brighton & Hove Albion.
There were also draws between Fulham and Wolverhampton Wanderers and Crystal Palace and Cardiff City, before West Ham brought the gameweek to a close with victory at Southampton.
Here, Sports Mole selects its Premier League team of the week for gameweek 19.
Spurs were the biggest winners of the Boxing Day fixtures, but Hugo Lloris also had work to do at the other end to keep Bournemouth at bay, making four saves en route to the clean sheet.
It is an all-Merseyside back three, with Liverpool's Dejan Lovren keeping a clean sheet and also opening the scoring in explosive fashion against Newcastle at Anfield. The Croat also won a team-high five aerial duels and registered a 91% pass accuracy as Liverpool coasted to all three points.
Everton bounced back from their own heavy defeat by inflicting one on Burnley, and Yerry Mina was one of those on the scoresheet at Turf Moor. Michael Keane also made a goalline clearance for his side, and between them they won a whopping 24 aerial duels to help keep Burnley at bay.
The star of the show for Everton was Lucas Digne, though, with the Frenchman scoring twice to earn his place at left wing-back and complete the trio of Toffees players selected in this XI.
There was more competition for the right wing-back role, with Michail Antonio, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Kyle Walker-Peters all deserving honourable mentions, but we have to include a Leicester player from their win over Man City and goalscorer Ricardo Pereira was the standout performer for the Foxes at the King Power Stadium.
Perhaps predictably, Paul Pogba looks like a new player following Jose Mourinho's exit as manager, and he helped Ole Gunnar Solskjaer mark his first home game in interim charge with a brace against Huddersfield.
Christian Eriksen was also on the scoresheet during Tottenham's win over Bournemouth, as well as registering an assist, to earn a place in the midfield ahead of Nemanja Matic.
Eriksen's Spurs teammate Son Heung-min is unfortunate to miss out following his brace in that rout of the Cherries, but some stiff competition for the forward places means that he is not alone in that regard, with Mohamed Salah, Willian, Lucas Moura and Bernard also absent.
Felipe Anderson scored a quickfire brace to turn things around for West Ham against Southampton, and Eden Hazard was also on the scoresheet twice to earn Chelsea victory by the same 2-1 scoreline at Watford.
Harry Kane ensured that he kept pace with fellow Golden Boot hopefuls Salah and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang with his goal in Tottenham's five-star performance against Bournemouth, becoming the third Spurs player to earn his spot in this XI.
Barney Corkhill
