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40. Christian Eriksen, Tottenham Hotspur (New!)

Christian Eriksen has been in fantastic form over the last three months, so it may surprise you to see him only just enter the ranking at No. 40 this week. But the Dane's issue has been that he didn't play well during the first three months, so in a ranking that scores players weekly and updates on a rolling basis, he gave himself a big hill to climb.

He kicked off December with a two-goal, one-assist performance against Swansea City and hasn't looked back. Expect him to carry on rising from here.

39. Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Manchester United (Stay)

Ibrahimovic watched on as Man Utd beat Middlesbrough 3-1, with Marcus Rashford putting in a good performance (despite not scoring).

Readers often question why the Swede is so low in the rankings, and it's because consistency reigns supreme in this scenario. We update this weekly based on how players performed, and those who hit rough patches inevitably suffer and tumble down.

In Ibrahimovic's case, he endured a horrid October spell in which his score plummeted. By our calculations, he's actually had six really bad games (Bournemouth included) in the Premier League this season, and that's the reason he's so low.

38. Romelu Lukaku, Everton (New!)

Lukaku scored his 20th and 21st goals of the Premier League season on Saturday, and yet only just scrapes the bottom of the rankings. Why? Because the Belgian has struggled for consistency (the enemy of our scoring system) and has tended to fill his boots in gluts against lesser teams.

Of his 21 goals, only three have come against top-six teams; two came against Manchester City, whose defence is more like a bottom six side's, and one against Tottenham Hotspur when Jan Vertonghen fell over.

37. Dele Alli, Tottenham Hotspur (New!)

Too often this season Alli has been guilty of either barely affecting the game or doing nothing for 89 minutes and then scoring, but Sunday was different. He was brilliant against Southampton and his goal was the icing on the cake.

It's good to see Alli recover from a poor start to the season and really find his groove; his goalscoring exploits this calendar year have been so impressive.

36. Georginio Wijnaldum, Liverpool (+1)

Put in a masterful performance as Liverpool ground out a draw at the Etihad Stadium, flicking some beautiful passes in behind the defence and keeping things tidy in the middle.