A potentially pivotal Merseyside derby, a chance for Man Utd to make changes and a tricky assignment for Chelsea
Ten years to the day after their most recent win over Liverpool, Everton entertain the Premier League champions at Goodison Park in a top-flight fixture that is about as mouthwatering as they get under the current conditions. Despite the 7-2 defeat to Aston Villa, Liverpool go into the game as odds-on favourites against a side that, under the stewardship of Carlo Ancelotti, finally appears to have overcome their almost pathological inconsistency. Their white-hot winning streak of seven matches in all competitions since the season began will end at some point, but there are few compelling arguments that suggest it will do so against a team that has looked curiously out of sorts lately. We could learn a lot from this game, not least whether Everton are genuine title contenders in what is already shaping up to be a very peculiar season, and whether the extraordinary humiliation visited upon Liverpool by Aston Villa was an aberration or an early indicator of a far greater malaise. BG