It was another wildly entertaining month, full of drama and excitement; Adam Hurrey looks back at March.

Who won the month? Chelsea's champions elect

March is traditionally the time of year when the picture at the top and bottom of the league starts to become clearer, while the cup competitions find themselves boiled down to their main protagonists. In both domestic cases, Chelsea are firmly in the driving seat.

Antonio Conte's six Premier League points in March will have left Tottenham -- the only sustained challengers this season -- wondering what more they can do to get their name etched on a Premier League trophy. This season, though, the record books suggest the race is already over -- no team with this many points after 28 games has ever been overhauled.

Chelsea have bounced back from last season's debacle in so many departments, but their proactive approach has paid off. While Jose Mourinho's disharmonious side were a sitting duck at times during their woeful title defence of 2015-16, Conte demands that his version grabs the game by the scruff of the neck as soon as possible.

The result? Chelsea have opened the scoring in 22 of those 28 games so far. Their head start is surely insurmountable.

Who lost the month? Arsenal's broken record

Monthly reviewers have invariably been able to count on Arsenal and the month of March to provide some evergreen content, but the last few weeks have been so exquisitely Arsenal.

Their early-spring capitulation began at Anfield, where Alexis Sanchez was benched, their midfield evaporated and Liverpool tore them apart on the counter attack. Just 72 hours later, they faced the thankless task of chipping away at Bayern Munich's 5-1 first-leg lead in the Champions League, only to suffer the same fate again -- the goals being rolled in, almost uncontested, like the latter stages of a charity match. "Undignified" doesn't quite cover it.

A 5-0 FA Cup hammering of Lincoln proved to be scarce catharsis. Arsenal concluded their business of their least favourite month by succumbing to the set-piece straightforwardness of West Brom -- not the only aerial threat at the Hawthorns, given the plane banners that flew overhead with anti-Wenger sentiment.

Four defeats in five league games -- plus another chastening reminder of their European ceiling -- has left Arsenal with some serious work to do to avoid the unthinkable: missing out on the top four. With Wenger still keeping his cards close to his chest on his future, and Alexis Sanchez apparently storming towards the exit door in frustration, it would seem that patience is running out all round.

Player of the month: Romelu Lukaku

The race to be the Premier League's top scorer isn't always blessed with the combination of closeness and high quality. This season, though, it can afford to have the likes of Sergio Aguero and Zlatan Ibrahimovic on the periphery while four undoubtedly top-class strikers engage in a weekly game of one-upmanship.

While Diego Costa shares the goalscoring burden at Chelsea -- and, to a lesser extent, Harry Kane and Alexis Sanchez do the same in north London -- Everton's Romelu Lukaku appears to have finally outgrown his surroundings as he edges clear in the Golden Boot standings.

It doesn't take much for a home crowd to turn on a player these days and, with the emerging reports of Lukaku turning down a new contract, Goodison Park might have been expected to emit the odd boo when he took the field against Hull. Instead, Lukaku's name was already being cheered before kickoff, let alone after he had scored two and laid on another -- his 11th and 12th goals in his last 10 games that took him to 21 overall for the league season.

While Everton are guaranteed to make the negotiations long and arduous, it seems likely that Lukaku will seek another chance to prove himself at a Champions League club. Whether that's back at Chelsea or further afield, he seems ready to elevate himself among the European elite. Perhaps only under that unique pressure will we finally know if he has the all-round game but, on March's evidence, he is an established Premier League force.

Match of the month: Manchester City 1-1 Liverpool

"Today is one of the happiest days of my life", beamed Pep Guardiola after the final whistle, as if he'd taken a step back for the afternoon and enjoyed a quite incredible match as a neutral. Guardiola's pride in his players' endurance -- matching that of a typically tireless Liverpool just a few days after Champions League despair against Monaco -- wasn't entirely misplaced.

He and Klopp embraced at the final whistle like two boxers who had gone the distance, and that's precisely how the game itself had looked. There had been refereeing controversy (when isn't there) but this match was defined by the relentless commitment to attack, coupled with some erratic defending, and crowned by surely the miss of the season by Adam Lallana with 10 minutes to go.

Lallana's reasonable excuse -- like many others on the pitch -- was that he'd run himself into the rain-soaked ground for the 79 previous minutes.

With so many moving parts, this fixture already promised something special. 26 shots were fired in, 25 of them from within the confines of the penalty area -- both attacks clearly fancied their chances, and both defences were happy to oblige.

Goal of the month: Eden Hazard v West Ham

A goal that encapsulated much about Antonio Conte's Chelsea: ruthless, fuss-free, punishing opponents for their mistakes...and yet still quite good to look at. Chelsea are not merely a team, but one made up of some exceptional individuals, all of whom have stepped up a much-needed level or two from last season. Two of them, plus a peerless newcomer, tore West Ham to shreds in a matter of seconds.

With the home side fully committed in the Chelsea half, Mark Noble had to make the right pass -- unfortunately for him, N'Golo Kante has a habit of getting in the way. In he pounced, setting Chelsea on the counter down the left, before shifting the ball inside for Eden Hazard.

At top speed, and with claret-and-blue shirts desperately scrambling back, the one-two with Pedro was superbly executed, setting Hazard free and clear. As Darren Randolph raced off his line to prepare for the one-on-one, Hazard darted to the right -- almost parallel to the edge of the box -- and eliminated the goalkeeper entirely.

The finish was a formality. What came before it certainly wasn't.

Most predictable moment of the month: Defoe taking his final England chance

Whether it's his newly-adopted veganism or simply an undimming enjoyment from hitting the back of the net, 34-year-old Jermain Defoe is still going.

There were several caveats to Defoe's first start in an England shirt in four years: England's minor injury crisis up front, the fact it was just Lithuania standing in their way, and that Jamie Vardy was always in reserve if the situation got serious.

Defoe will be nudging 36 by the time England gather themselves for another World Cup anti-climax in Russia next summer, and the chances are that his career resurgence will fall just short of a major tournament finale. His form for Sunderland -- while bearing in mind their consistently wretched results -- has been steady rather than scintillating.

For all of that, though, it seemed written that Defoe would get -- and convert -- a chance at Wembley. It had been an economical display up to that point, to put it politely, but his fourth touch of the ball after 20 minutes sent England into the lead. It was a chance that any striker could and should have put away, but Defoe isn't in the business of blowing anyone's mind -- he knows what he can do.

If, as expected, he leaves a doomed Sunderland this summer, his next move will be an interesting one. His new fitness and diet regime suggests he is geared for another Premier League season -- who will accommodate him, and whether it will be enough to keep him in the international picture, remains to be seen.

Surprise of the month: Leicester's flagging fairytale firing up again

When this monthly review last convened, it was prepared to read the last rites to Leicester's year in the sun. The increasingly powerless Claudio Ranieri was finally let go after his side had been outmanoeuvered (but, crucially, not killed off) in Seville, Leicester's seventh defeat in nine games. Nine Premier League hours had gone by in 2017 without a goal.

Then, right at the end of February, caretaker manager Craig Shakespeare (now -- spoiler alert -- the permanent man for the job) jolted the defending league champions into life. Liverpool were swept aside at the King Power Stadium like it was 2016 all over again, but this very column argued that any mini-revival meant nothing unless momentum could be maintained in March.

No doubts there. Leicester's domestic goal drought has been followed by nine goals in three games, and wins over Hull and West Ham to go along with the aforementioned Liverpool thrashing.

Most startling of all, though, was the Champions League turnaround against Sevilla -- first to lead on away goals, then to put the tie out of the Spaniards' reach, and then to rub salt into the wound by provoking Samir Nasri into a red card. Wes Morgan and Robert Huth were once again the brick wall at the back instead of two bumbling nightclub doormen, and Leicester's season had a whole new chapter to explore.

Atletico Madrid are another level entirely, but Craig Shakespeare's men now have very little to lose.

What April needs to deliver: More entertainment, fewer tactics

More pure, mindless top-tier entertainment with scant regard for tactics or game management, please. April will surely indulge us.

Arsenal face Manchester City in the Premier League and an FA Cup semifinal, while Chelsea take on both Manchester clubs and then Spurs in the other FA Cup semi. We also have both the north London and Manchester derbies to look forward to. Hopes and futures are going to be crushed somewhere and it'll be thoroughly entertaining to witness.

Source:
courtesy of ESPNFC

by ADAM HURREY

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