December promises to be a pivotal month in the English Premier League title race, starting with this weekend's double header between last season's top four - Tottenham v Chelsea tomorrow and Manchester United v Arsenal on Monday night. With those games to come, tonight's action seems to belong in a different league.
As a bellwether of the title race, few games are as important as the Manchester United-Arsenal clashes and, as they prepare for their first meeting of the season at Old Trafford, they sit first and second in the table - a rare turn of events since Chelsea emerged as United's main rival in the Roman Abramovich era.
For almost a decade before that, the teams moulded by Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger duelled for supremacy and, more often than not, their head-to-heads proved to be crucial. In Wenger's three title-winning seasons, Arsenal were never beaten by United, home or away, while United came out on top in their head-to-heads with Wenger's Arsenal in five of their past eight championship successes.
Arsenal's league record at Old Trafford when they have gone on to win the title is won two, drawn one, while they have lost five, drawn two and won only one in their title-less seasons, which suggests avoiding defeat on Monday (and, even better, winning) would be a significant sign that they have what it takes to scratch the seven-year itch since their last championship success.
The decline in Arsenal's competitiveness in the games that really matter is clear from their results against United since the Invincibles won the Gunners' last title in the 2003-04 season. At Old Trafford, Arsenal's post-Invincibles record is lost seven out of nine, with just one win, and overall they have won just four of 18 against United.
Arsenal's place at the top of the away standings, with five wins out of eight, suggests they have improved, but that impression could be misleading. Three of the wins were against teams currently in the bottom six and the only victory against a top-half side was the 3-0 success at Manchester City, where the early dismissal of City's Dedryck Boyata was a major factor in the outcome.