All eyes will be fixed upon Anfield come Monday evening to watch two of the fiercest rivals in English football conclude the eighth weekend of Premier League action.
Liverpool are currently fourth on the table with 16 points, three ahead of Manchester United in the seventh position.
Recent history favours the visitors ahead of their 197th clash in all competitions, having won six and lost three in their previous ten meetings.
Home advantage will surely give the hosts an edge on Monday, but one Anfield legend believes a different factor will play a more telling role in determining the outcome of the game.
In his column for the Sunday Times, per 101 Great Goals, Graeme Souness has written about the astonishing difference between the two sides in terms of ground covered this season.
The Reds having travelled further than any other top-flight side, whereas the Old Trafford outfit has run the shortest distance.
According to Souness, this may not necessarily play into Liverpool’s favour.
“There’s a danger of reading too much into Liverpool being top of the Premier League’s distance- covered table and Manchester United being bottom of it before they meet at Anfield tomorrow. There’s a place for such stats, but you can’t be bogged down by them,” he wrote.
“The danger of the aggressive approach of Liverpool, Manchester City and Tottenham, the top three sides for distance covered so far this season, is that you run out of steam, whether it’s over 90 minutes or the course of the season.”
The former Reds striker says Liverpool must be intelligent in how they approach facing Jose Mourinho’s men, namely because his team boasts a couple of clever players who could boss the game without running themselves into the ground.
“In every game, there’s a period when you come under pressure from the opposition, but we could create a traffic jam so they had nowhere to go. That’s where the brains come in as well as the legs.
“In Jose Mourinho’s squad, Daley Blind has a terrific football brain and Michael Carrick is from the same mould.”
With all that said, strangely, Souness still considers Liverpool “clear favourites” to take all three points from United on Monday.