There are six ever-present clubs since the inauguration of the Premier League in 1992. Between them, they account for the Merseyside derby and North London derby, not to mention matches between Manchester United and Liverpool and some of the biggest title rivalries of the modern era.
Everton and Tottenham Hotspur are the two teams without a Premier League title – the Toffees last won the championship in 1986-87, Spurs in 1960-61 – and neither have really been all that close.
But beware the pundit who measures football in silver alone. Trophies mean the world when our teams win them just as true derbies are the game's enmity engine made manifest twice a season, but these moments are easy to love.
Everton vs Manchester United is pure Premier League
The Premier League's day-to-day, its run-of-the-mill, its par-for-the-course, is where the real magic happens. Everton and Manchester United create magic in the mundane.
As two of the six, Everton and United have played each other in two league games in every season of the Premier League years. They don't have the rivalry with one another that they both have with Liverpool, nor even the mutual distaste between United and Arsenal, but there's something that's just so right when they meet face to face.
As the Red Devils prepare to visit the Hill Dickinson Stadium for the first time, the prospect of pure Premier League is on the horizon. The North London derby is exciting, sure, but Everton vs Manchester United under the floodlights is everything top-level English football has to offer.
The first Premier League match played at Old Trafford was a 3-0 win for Everton. Former United favourite Peter Beardsley continued a rich tradition of shared players by scoring the first goal at his old stomping ground, followed in fairly short order by Robert Warzycha and Mo Johnston.
Wind the clock forward 33 years and Everton were at it again, having midfielder Idrissa Gueye sent off for slapping teammate Michael Keane – another former United man – and still coming out on top courtesy of a Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall's ripsnorter.
"According to Law 12, a player must be sent off if they use excessive force or brutality against an opponent, a teammate, a team official or a match official," said Howard Webb after the bizarre altercation at Old Trafford. "So, it goes on to include teammates and it's unusual, we've not seen many of these situations happen before."
Between those noteworthy fixtures, United won the title 13 times and have had the better of the games against Everton, whose ever-present status has occasionally hung by a thread.
In his comments after the slap heard around the football world, Webb referenced an old referees' adage about Law 18 being common sense.
Law 18 should be that all league fixtures between Everton and Manchester United are played on Monday nights in winter, illuminated how the football gods intended to allow for the maximum effect of red versus blue, Merseyside versus Manchester, and a fixture that captures the essence of elite English football in a way the common or garden local derby never could.
The 68th Premier League meeting between these famous old sort-of foes is far from meaningless.
United were embarrassed by their loss in November. They played against 10 men in comical circumstances for more than 75 minutes and came out on the losing side. Worse, it felt like the culmination of everything the Red Devils had become under Ruben Amorim.
Now, with Michael Carrick in charge and respectability largely restored, United are hunting a fifth win in six matches and to continue their unbeaten record with their former midfielder at the helm.
Everton suffered a setback against AFC Bournemouth in their last weekend but a win against United on Monday would keep them right in the thick of the battle for a European spot.
This is football with jeopardy, meaning, subtle tradition, a bit of historic spice and the unavoidable honesty of a match between teams who don't think about each other for 36 weeks a season. It doesn't get more Premier League than that.
