Fact: Liverpool are behind Manchester City in the Premier League on goal difference.
Fact: Liverpool have a game in hand on the reigning champions.
Fact: that match is an away fixture at Old Trafford against a Manchester United team who have found a rich seam of league form under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and who would relish the chance to scupper their great rivals' title bid, even if it aids their Mancunian neighbours.
Editors' Picks
United away looms over Liverpool’s season like a semi-impregnable medieval castle, only this time they need to scale the walls or their 29-year wait to be champions of England could be extended into a fourth decade.