"Povember"

The headline is not a mis-print, but a tribute to the achievement of our Head Coach this month.

I wrote in last month's review:- "Any optimism .......... has to be tempered by what is to come next month, when we have three London Derby matches."

Mauricio Pochettino and his team have passed the November test with flying colours. They were unbeaten in 6 games, beating West Ham convincingly, deserving to beat Arsenal away (but drawing), and drawing at home to a somewhat re-vitalised Chelsea team. We also put away bottom side Aston Villa, and won both our Europa League games this month, securing qualification for the knock-out phase in the New Year.

The spursometer grades for this month show a full ten point improvement in all categories in comparison to those in October, when the 5-1 at Bournemouth had actually been our only victory of the month.

Similarly, Mauricio Pochettino's overall assessment has increased by the same ten point margin, and he has achieved his highest monthly mark since his appointment at Spurs.

Harry Kane scored in five of the 6 games this month, and I thought he might even go on to match Jamie Vardy's record breaking run of scoring in 11 consecutive Premier League games (to date) for high-flying Leicester. In the end, Harry was stopped (by Chelsea) after only four consecutive Premier League games, but he had been on a run of 9 goals in 6 games in all competitions.

Spurs' unbeaten run in Premier League games does continue, and now stands at 13, which is our best league run since a 14 game stretch in 1984-85.

A welcome change this season is the fact that not just one or two, but several outfield players have emerged as real challengers to Hugo Lloris for the spursometer Player of the Season vote. After winning our player of the month vote in the first three months of the season, Hugo does still lead the table at present, but he is now being closely followed by Toby Alderweireld, Eric Dier, Dele Alli, Mousa Dembele and Jan Vertonghen.

Harry Kane's absence from that list is only because of the time it took him to get off the mark with his Premier League scoring this season. However, Harry is rapidly catching the others now.

The surprising name in that list of challengers is Mousa Dembele, who deservedly won our player of the month vote, despite the efforts of Toby Alderweireld, who won the last two man of the match votes. Dembele was man of the match in three of the six games this month, and such was his importance and form that he was one of only three first team players rested at home whilst the squad travelled to Azerbaijan. Dembele's form dipped a little for the Chelsea game, but Mourinho's side did swamp the midfield.

The month of December is a little lighter than in some years, but we still have another 6 games to play. Only two of our five league games will be at home, but in theory, most, if not all five such games are winnable. Let's put the theory to the test!

· Review the 2015-16 Premier League season here

Don't forget to check out the players' current figures re. appearances, cards, goals scored and accumulated ratings to date at the bottom of this page.

...if you want to read reports of the matches played during this season, then links are on the Spurs Odyssey Fixtures/Reports page here. By working your way back through the previous month's figures, you can review the performances over 15 years!