How United kick off calendar years in the Premier League

In fact, it's our only league date during a quieter-than-usual January. Erik ten Hag’s side do have a fourth-round Emirates FA Cup tie, against either Newport County or Eastleigh, to negotiate at the end of the month, but our next top-flight assignment is at Wolves on 1 February.

January is traditionally an action-packed period and there have been plenty of memorable calendar-openers in the Premier League era.

Some of those have been against Sunday's opponents, Spurs - this will actually be the fifth time since 1992 we have played our first game of a new year against the north London outfit.

In 1993, a United side buoyed by the pre-Christmas arrival of Eric Cantona destroyed Spurs 4-1 at Old Trafford, with the quartet of goals coming in the space of 17 minutes. The King himself found the net, while Denis Irwin benefited from one of his fabulous assists on a day when Brian McClair and Paul Parker also scored.

However, the capital club got their revenge on New Year’s Day 1996, turning the 4-1 scoreline from three years earlier completely on his headline. Chris Armstrong (2), Sol Campbell and future Reds striker Teddy Sheringham all netted for Spurs, rendering Andy Cole's equaliser meaningless, as United ended a demanding run of four games in eight days with an unfamiliar backline of Parker, the young Neville brothers and French loanee William Prunier.

A Ryan Giggs double earned us a decent 2-0 victory over the Lilywhites at Old Trafford on 10 January 1998, but 16 years later, Spurs came away from the Theatre of Dreams with all three points as our current midfielder Christian Eriksen scored what proved to be the winner in their 2-1 triumph.

That nightmare visit to White Hart Lane in ’96 was the one and only time in the first 11 terms of the Premier League that we started the year away from home. Old Trafford openers around that time including a 4-1 thrashing of West Ham in 1999, a 1-1 draw with Arsenal – played on 24 January 2000, after our involvement in the Club World Cup – and a stoppage-time comeback victory over bottom-of-the-table Sunderland on the first day of 2003.

The home-away split has been a lot more even in the last two decades, although matchgoing fans will have fond memories of 2009's dismantling of title rivals Chelsea, and last year’s success over Bournemouth as Erik ten Hag’s side started to click after the World Cup break. Both were 3-0 victories in M16.

There have been a couple of away defeats – Newcastle in 2012 and Arsenal in 2020 – but plenty of reason for January cheer on the road, too.

Javier Hernandez provided just that, with a late winner at West Bromwich Albion in 2011, while West Ham, Everton and Newcastle were all dispatched 2-0 on their own patches between 2017 and 2019.

UNITED’S RECORD IN PL YEAR OPENERS

Played 31
Won 19
Drawn 7
Lost 5
Goals for 54
Goals against 23