Liverpool could find themselves in their highest Premier League position for three years this weekend after the European champions host Wigan Athletic at Anfield.
Champions and runaway league leaders Chelsea are at home to Middlesbrough, Manchester United face struggling Portsmouth and Arsenal are away to bogey team Bolton Wanderers.
Bolton stand to help a Liverpool side who have lacked the consistency and strength in depth to keep up with Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea in the weekly grind of domestic football.
In his first season, manager Rafael Benitez succeeded in turning them into a successful cup side, winning the Champions League in May after reaching the League Cup final against Chelsea in February.
Helped by his talented imports from the Spanish Primera Liga such as Luis Garcia and Xabi Alonso, the Spaniard is now adding some real resilience to a team bidding for a sixth consecutive league win on Saturday.
They have not conceded a goal in those previous five games, during which time they have accelerated from 13th to fourth in the table, or in either of the two Champions League group matches sandwiched within that run.
Liverpool have not been fourth since May 2004 and have not been any higher than that since the Merseysiders were second in the coming weekend's corresponding fixture back in 2002.
Liverpool, on 25 points, are only a point behind second-placed Arsenal and two adrift of Manchester United in the league.
CHELSEA RALLY
Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho, whose team are 12 points ahead, albeit after playing a game more, will not be losing any sleep in their quest for a 10th consecutive home league win.
After two unaccustomed defeats, his side have won their last three games in all competitions without conceding a goal and England midfielder Frank Lampard has soared to the top of the league scoring charts.
Lampard has also finished second behind Ronaldinho as European Footballer of the Year and is on a shortlist of three for FIFA's World Player of the Year with the same Brazilian and Cameroon's Samuel Eto'o.
Middlesbrough, whose former Chelsea striker Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink should make a nostalgic return to Stamford Bridge, will have been buoyed by a midweek win over Crystal Palace which booked them into the League Cup quarter-finals.
United return to Old Trafford after an emotional night on Wednesday when tributes were paid to the memory of George Best before their League Cup win over West Bromwich Albion.
England striker Wayne Rooney, brilliant when he turned around a 1-0 deficit in last weekend's 2-1 league win at West Ham, will again be leading the charge.
Portsmouth, casting around for a new manager after the sacking of Alain Perrin, still have Joe Jordan in charge in what looks like an unenviable task. Pompey have lost their last three league games without scoring.
Arsenal will not be relishing another meeting with Bolton, having taken only one point off them last season and not having won at the Reebok in the league for three years -- despite an FA Cup victory there in March.
Most painful of all, though, was a 2-2 draw there in April 2003 which killed off Arsenal's bid for the title.
Elsewhere, the pressure is building on three other managers.
Newcastle United manager Graeme Souness, whose team lost to Wigan in the League Cup on Wednesday, badly needs a win at home to Aston Villa, whose David O'Leary is similarly under fire after their League Cup exit at the hands of Doncaster Rovers.
Sunderland boss Mick McCarthy takes his bottom-placed team to White Hart Lane to face sixth-placed Tottenham Hotspur, hoping for a change in his fortunes. Wednesday's 2-0 home defeat by Liverpool was their eighth successive defeat in all competitions.
