It’s first against 14th in this year’s Premier League, and also first against second in all-time English league titles. The nation’s two greatest clubs meet with one on course to win their 20th league title and the other, well, not likely to add to their own tally of 20 any time soon. Manchester United have lost their last four games in all competitions, their players still seem to have no idea what increasingly-not-that-new head coach Ruben Amorim wants them to be doing, are generally miserable and lacking both clue and hap. But still, they wear the shirt of Manchester United and as they showed at Manchester City last month sometimes that can inspire them to do crazy things.

“In football, one game, anything can happen,” Amorim said this week. “If you talk about the season then almost every time the best win. In the moment they are better than us but we can win any game.”

So this is exciting, despite the disparity in form and quality. And also despite the fact that in four of the last eight seasons this fixture has ended 0-0. The other four have been won by Liverpool; in fact Manchester United have been winning for just 12 of the last 900 minutes (not including stoppage time) they have played at Anfield, and the last player to put them ahead in a game there was Wayne Rooney.

“You can see in my face, you can compare the way I arrived and now,” Amorim said of the stresses of this job. “Of course when you are [losing] there is a lot of pressure. It is hard to cope with all the problems, the bad performances and the losses, it is really hard. It is supposed to be really hard. I think people are tired of excuses at this club. This club needs a shock.”

Well they’ve had a few of those. Will today bring another? Let’s find out together, shall we?