Some performances and results are so achingly perfect you want to call a temporary halt to the campaign, basking in the afterglow for a while. Sunday at Tottenham was one such day, but Christmas-time waits for no one.

This is the 19th top-flight match, marking the halfway stage of the season. It can be a fork in the road for those who take the wrong turning over the next eight days, which will be frenetic.

There are nine points up for grabs to all clubs between Boxing Day and 2 January, when Sheffield United’s visit to Anfield brings the festive programme to a close. Fortunately, the Blues do not have far to travel, with two games in London and the other a short trip to Brighton.

Chelsea won the reverse fixture to today’s in October by four goals to one, and the quirk of this round of matches is that everyone is playing a team for the second time without having faced every other opponent. In the Blues’ case the missing club is Arsenal, our hosts in three days’ time.

After Sunday’s 2-0 victory at Jose Mourinho’s Tottenham, a win at the Emirates would secure a double of away wins over the north London sides for only the sixth time in Chelsea’s history and first since 2012/13.

Chelsea have won seven of the past eight Premier League encounters with Southampton. Hopefully the Londoners will restore the natural order of things too as having gone unbeaten in our previous 13 games against teams starting the day in the bottom four, the Blues recently lost the past two (to West Ham and Everton).

Last season the Saints secured a 0-0 draw at the Bridge and they have earned almost two-thirds of their points on the road, but their run of 13 games without a clean sheet will concern Ralph Hasenhuttl, the Austrian coach installed a year ago. Tellingly, 10 of the 13 goals they have conceded on their travels have come in the last half-hour of matches.

Spurs spiked

As a result of Sunday’s epic 2-0 victory at Tottenham, Chelsea remain unbeaten in first visits to Premier League stadiums since 2001. And, for the first time, Mourinho sampled the bitter taste of defeat inflicted by a former club on his own ground. Frank Lampard has now seen off his former boss in both their encounters as coaches, and this was his most impressive scalping to date.

The tactical plan hatched at Tottenham had been incubated behind closed doors on the training pitch thanks a clear week. The same flexible 3-4-3 system that worked at Lille and Wolves exposed Spurs’ right-back Serge Aurier and left his fellow defenders three-on-three with the Blues’ forwards. Mourinho, who David Moyes once compared to a chess master for his use of substitutes, could not find an answer on this occasion. This was the Blues’ most complete performance of the season, with a clean sheet to boot.

Willian’s performance was up there not only with his best ever in royal blue, but arguably that of any Chelsea player over the past few seasons.

The Brazil star’s Sunday brace means he has overtaken his tally for last season with four strikes in 17 appearances, including our 100th goal against the Lilywhites in the Premier League.

Premier League topscorers

Jamie Vardy 17Tammy Abraham 11Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang 11Danny Ings 11Marcus Rashford 10

Across all competitions the west Londoners have now managed three successive wins against Spurs for the first time since January 2008. None of that work will mean as much without the right results against Southampton and Arsenal.Chelsea are without the suspended Mateo Kovacic for the first of those matches and Cesar Azpilicueta felt his hamstring at Tottenham and is a doubt. Fortunately there are ready-made replacements in Jorginho and Reece James.

The ‘Ralphival’ of the Saints

Since enduring seven top-flight games without a win, Ralph Hasenhuttl has seen Southampton’s spirits revive with three wins in five that have lifted then out of the bottom four.

After winning at and leap-frogging relegation rivals Villa, the south coast side have now found the net in each of their last eight Premier League games on the road, their best sequence since 2014. A year ago a similar recovery run was thanks largely to goals from midfielders Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, Nathan Redmond and James Ward-Prowse.

While Ward-Prowse’s long passing and set-play expertise remain vital, and darting runs behind defences from Shane Long (a doubt today with a knee injury) help, it is poacher Danny Ings who is applying the cutting edge. The 27-year-old from Winchester has hit seven goals in as many league games and is the first Saint to reach double figures by Christmas since James Beattie in 2002.

That said, Hasenhuttl hinted on Tuesday that his leading scorer will not be asked to play all three Christmas matches, and may be rested at the Bridge.

FA Cup and Champions League catch-up

FA Cup opponents Nottingham Forest, in action at Hull today, have played five times without a win after the weekend loss away to Huddersfield.

Chelsea’s 10-year UEFA club coefficient ranking is now 212, the fifth highest in Europe behind Real Madrid (367), Barcelona (298), Bayern (274) and Atletico (218) and therefore the best of any England club.

Fixtures in February

The shortest month of the year will be unusually uncongested for Chelsea after the Champions League draw and latest release of TV fixtures. Bayern Munich’s Round of 16 trip to London on Tuesday 25 February is one of only five fixtures scheduled as a result of the Premier League’s first ever winter break.

Half of Premier League sides were given the weekend of 15/16 off, and half, including Chelsea, 8/9 February. As the visit of Manchester United was also put back to Monday 17 February, the Londoners will have 15 free days between matches, the biggest break on offer. (FA Cup round five games, usually staged mid-February have been moved to a midweek in March.)

After that, the Blues have one game – Tottenham at the Bridge on Saturday 22 February – before the Bavarians’ visit three days later. Germany’s three-week ‘Winterpause’ started on 23 December and ends on Friday 17 January.

The ghost of Christmas football past

One hundred years ago in 1919 there was an exhausting festive feast of Division One matches with each side in action on three successive days: Christmas Day, Boxing Day and Saturday the 27th.‘No normal Yuletide would be complete without its quota of sport,’ reasoned Birmingham’s Daily Gazette, ‘and the coming days will be busy ones. What better antidote to the “after-effects” could there be than a few hours watching one’s favourites administer Christmas cheer to Chelsea, or Sunderland, or Leicester City?’

When the Pensioners were duly pummelled 5-2 in Brum by Aston Villa on the 25th they actually had two goals scrubbed out because no other player touched the ball en route to the net: one from an indirect free-kick, the other direct from a corner, which was then illegal.

David Calderhead’s men returned south by train that night to beat Oldham on Boxing Day and Sheffield United the day after, both by a goal to nil. Impressively, there were 40,000 present on both occasions in west London. Jack Harrow’s late direct free-kick saw off the Latics, and £2,000 marksman Jack Cock’s 11th of the season blunted the Blades.

Another Christmas gift came from the FA, who revealed that the Bridge had won the bid to host the FA Cup final for the first time in spring 1920 – an ambition of Chelsea’s founding fathers since 1905. The showpiece prices were set at 3s to 10s 6d (15-52½p) for standing, £1 for a grandstand seat.

And, with that, we wish a Merry Christmas to everyone who reads our Pre-Match Briefings.

Premier League fixtures (all broadcast on Amazon Prime)

Boxing Day (Thursday)Tottenham v Brighton 12.30pmAston Villa v Norwich 3pmBournemouth v Arsenal 3pmChelsea v Southampton 3pmCrystal Palace v West Ham 3pmEverton v Burnley 3pmSheffield United v Watford 3pmManchester United v Newcastle 5.30pmLeicester v Liverpool 8pm

FridayWolves v Manchester City 7.45pm

Read: Chelsea vs Southampton - the stats