Pure excitement has been the theme of this Premier League season. Arsenal, Manchester City and Aston Villa are locked in a three-way title race while practically the rest of the division is competing for a European place. Indeed, the table is so crowded it feels more like the Championship than the top-flight, with back-to-back wins being all it takes to propel teams from 15th to the top five.
The story of the campaign has been Liverpool's stunning fall from grace after storming to last season's title and spending £446 million ($596m) in the transfer market, and that has allowed Arsenal to pick up the baton and run with it, However, they have recently been reeled in by a City side that have found their groove and a Villa team who brushed aside their own stuttering start to put together an incredible run of results.
Sunderland have bucked the trend of promoted teams spending the whole campaign trying to avoid relegation, with Regis Le Bris' side pulling off impressive feats such as nicking points off Arsenal and Liverpool while winning away at Chelsea to give themselves a real shot at qualifying for Europe. Brentford, meanwhile, have also defied expectations that they would be condemned to the drop, thanks in no small part to a previously little-known Brazilian forward.
And so as we approach the festive fixtures and the halfway point of the season, GOAL has assembled the best combined XI from all 20 teams...