Liverpool v Manchester City: Premier League – live

A four-match international break has presented a stress test. “The intensity of the squad, the athleticism of it, really, I think it’s designed for the elite,” said the Wales head coach, Craig Bellamy, on the completion of four matches in 11 days. Elite club coaches would disagree. The Nations League and the wider set of international games staged across the globe have been accompanied in the sky has decided it should be at Anfield – home of Liverpool, their biggest modern rivals and the team most affected by City’s success in the last 15 years. The atmosphere is always febrile when City visit Anfield; today, it will be off the charts.

Under normal circumstances, this would be a good time for City to play Liverpool. They have won five out of five in the Premier League, whereas Liverpool are still learning to speak Andoni Iraola’s coaching language and will be without both Alexander Isak and Cody Gakpo.

You don’t need a PhD in rocket science to know these are not normal circumstances. To many people, this isn’t so much a football match as a public shaming. City will try to focus exclusively on the football – partly because they believe they have irrefutable proof of their innocence, partly because anyone who wants to finish above Arsenal this season needs every point they can get.

Nobody, not even Biff Tannen, knows what’s going to happen over the next few hours. The only certainty is that there will be banners, banter and bile. In almost 140 years of English league football, there has never been a game like this.