It’s the Premier League’s fifth-best team against the 13th, a side that would move level with Liverpool in the home-games-only league table if they win – and lag behind only Brentford - against one that has beaten only one team away from home in the league all season, and that was Southampton three months and a day ago. None of this sound very exciting.

But it’s hard to think of a more intriguing recent Manchester derby. Perhaps it’s come too soon in Ruben Amorim’s spell in charge of United, and results – one win in his four league games so far, three in six if you throw in the Europa League – suggest he has yet to turn that ship around. But at the same time we don’t know what Big Derby Energy might do to them, and they have the encouragement of knowing that this Manchester City side are currently worse (on form and in transition) than most sides in the Premier League. Amorim has first-hand experience of this, having led Sporting Lisbon to a rollicking 4-1 rout of City in the Champions League at the start of last month (albeit that was a very odd game, which I thought City should have won). Add to that City’s defensive injury crisis, compounded by Rico Lewis’s suspension. “The soul and the spirit of this team is there,” says Pep Guardiola. “We have to focus on ourselves because we’re not being at the level we want to be also, so we can’t think about the momentum of the others,” says Amorim. “We just have to think about ourselves.”

Anyway, enough of that. It’s a derby, and a bigger one than usual. Welcome!