It is highly unlikely that Manchester City will make it to Saturday without being reminded of their last defeat at Manchester United.
Pep Guardiola and his team have kept clean sheets on their last two trips to Old Trafford — a dire draw in the league and a comfortable win in the league cup — but both of those matches came behind closed doors.
The last derby played with a full house came in March 2020, days before the UK went into its first lockdown as a result of the Covid pandemic, resulted in a 2-0 win for the hosts.
If that match isn't brought up from a City perspective, it would be a surprise if Ole Gunnar Solskjaer — with his keen love for past United glories and the Stretford End sucking the ball into the net — was not keen to talk about it.
Going to Old Trafford will undoubtedly be more difficult with fans in the ground, as Phil Foden acknowledged after the midweek win over Club Brugge. But City's two league titles under Guardiola when they were travelling to full stadiums up and down the country are ample proof that it won't be that much harder.
Fortunately for the Blues ahead of this weekend, it is just a month since they travelled to the fortress that in Anfield.
There was a school of thought popular in a particular area of Merseyside last season that Liverpool's title defence fell apart not because of their chronic bad luck with injuries or centre-backs, or because the rest of the squad dropped their standards after winning the title, but because there were no fans allowed at Anfield.
“You have destroyed my happiness because you don’t credit what we did last season,” joked Guardiola when that bizarre theory was put to him ahead of the game this October.
“I will never forgive you!"
If there was any credence to it to begin with, City promptly debunked the idea with a blistering performance that was worthy of at least a point; Mo Salah's genius helped Liverpool immensely, but having seen their team go in front twice the home crowd were twice silenced by the resilience of the reigning champions.
In one sense, Liverpool have increased the pressure on City for this game. Jurgen Klopp exposed the gulf between United and the sides that will be challenging for the title this season, barely getting out of second gear in their 5-0 demolition job a few weeks ago.
However, City's performance at Anfield — and their storming of Stamford Bridge a week earlier — should be enough to reassure Guardiola that there should not be any unexpected factors that affect his players in a full Old Trafford.
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