The English Premier League returns from the international break on a rather low-key note, with three of the top four at home to teams outside the top 10. The only match featuring two teams with serious ambitions of gaining a Champions League place is Liverpool v Manchester City, who go into the weekend respectively seventh and sixth in the table.
That is lower than both clubs wanted or expected to be; defeat in tonight's early kick-off would turn up the heat on the losing manager.
Rafa Benitez can forget his already slim title hopes if Liverpool lose at home for the second time this season and, with qualification for the Champions League knockout stage almost impossible, the two top prizes will be out of sight before winter has really taken hold.
More worryingly for the Liverpool owners and fans, defeat to Manchester City would put a big question mark over their ability to secure a Champions League place for next season with a top-four finish. Their previous home defeat this season was inflicted by Aston Villa, and also they lost at Tottenham Hotspur. Dropping points against the teams hoping to break the big-four monopoly of the Champions League places is a clear sign of Liverpool's vulnerability.
Liverpool also lost at eighth-placed Sunderland - albeit in the most unlucky of circumstances - and they will need to show much better form to overcome City, whose expensively assembled squad have lost only one of their opening 11 league games. That was unlucky too, as Manchester United snatched victory deep into stoppage time of a rip-roaring derby.
The cause of City's slump in the table has been a run of five successive draws. They were the better team in some of those games, notably in the 1-1 at Villa, but in their last away game at Birmingham City they were lucky to escape with a point, suggesting Mark Hughes's latest honeymoon period is over.