There's no bigger fixture in English football than the North-East derby, and this Sunday's edition will be broadcast live on Off The Ball (1.30).
Liverpool (5th) will host Manchester United (4th) at Anfield in less than 48 hours' time and while realistically there's no trophies on the line, the clash could have seismic ramifications with Top 4 places in the Premier League up for grabs.
David Connolly joined Oisin Langan on a special Rewind podcast to review the showdown, and gave us a tactical breakdown of what we can expect live here on Newstalk.
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"This will be a great game," David said. "Liverpool are in fantastic form. [Manager Brendan] Rodgers has changed his formation, playing very attacking football.
"Saying that, they are a very small team. It will be interesting, Man United's tactics, if they press them high. Try and force the long ball. They've only got small people up front.
"It's just whether United can stop them passing the ball out and getting out of trouble.
"Because once they get at the United back four - they've got a winger on one side in [Antonio] Valencia at right-back and they've got [Daley] Blind at left-back, who's a midfielder.
"If I was Liverpool, I'd be isolating Blind because I don't think he's got the legs, and he's not a left-back. I imagine they'd put [Raheem] Sterling up against Blind, to try and attack down that side and really go for them.
"It's the game of the season for Liverpool fans, and for United as well."
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Rodgers' tactical evolution this season has been oft-credited as the reason behind their surge up the table, and David continued: "They've gone to a back three which sometimes I feel if [only] they had more comfortable players on it.
"Emre Can, he's good on the ball but [Dejan] Lovren hasn't covered himself in glory. [Martin] Skrtel or [Mamadou] Sakho aren't totally comfortable on the ball, so I feel when they're pressed they're not actually great at passing out, particularly Sahko and Skrtel.
"It's just whether teams can do that. I watched them in a game recently - they were pressed, went back to goalkeeper [Simon] Mignolet, he kicked it long and then Liverpool lost every ball in the air.
"It's just whether Man United can affect that ball into midfield. [Liverpool] have got a lot of good ball-playing midfielders. Some of my [former] team-mates are there. Adam Lallana has come in and done very well - who I was with a Southampton ... and Jordan Henderson, he was at Sunderland. It's great to see these guys kick on."
David is very concerned by United players not tracking back though - fingering Juan Mata and Marouane Fellaini as guilty parties, and concluded: "There's a few questions marks over United against a really dynamic team."
You can listen to David with Oisin from 13:27:
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