There's that boring old cliche in football about taking one game at a time.
So, quite rightly, the focus for Cardiff City and Swansea City at the moment will be on their respective Championship clashes away to QPR and at home to Reading.
The fans, on the other hand, can be afforded the luxury of casting eyes slightly further forward to the first South Wales derby of the season the game after next on Sunday.
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So how are the two big Welsh rivals actually comparing this campaign and what can we expect when they clash in seven days time?
Quite similar, is the answer to the first bit of that, contrary to what a quick glance at the table might actually suggest.
The Swans are nicely tucked in at eighth place, closer to the top than the bottom. The Bluebirds are 17th, closer to the bottom than the top.
Yet their records are remarkably similar, with only three points separating the pair and Cardiff having the slightly better goal difference.
Swansea have Won 6, Drawn 3 Lost 5 of their 14 league games thus far. Cardiff have Won 5 Drawn 3 Lost 6. So there is a single win/loss difference there, something Cardiff, of course, could turn on its head should they be able to pull off a derby triumph.
Whether they can do that, of course, we'll come onto in a moment.
Saturday's crushing 4-0 defeat at Burnley aside, Swansea have earned rave reviews for a run of form which saw them storm to four wins on the trot, including a 2-1 triumph at Watford.
Yet their record of four wins and two losses in the last six games isn't that dissimilar to Cardiff's, even though there has been something of a managerial crisis surrounding Wales' capital city club. With a mix of Steve Morison and Mark Hudson at the helm, the Bluebirds have won three, drawn one and lost two of their own last six matches, including a hugely disappointing home setback in front of their own fans against Coventry on Saturday.
The teams, in many respects, are similar, too. Neither possess the type of stellar talent we've seen in South Wales in not so distant times when the likes of Craig Bellamy, Peter Whittingham, Michu and Ben Davies were among the many stars strutting their stuff.
Anything other than a mid-table finish for either team would be something of a surprise as rebuilding processes continue in the capital and down west.
But you can never take away the passion. Never, never, never. The Sky TV cameras will be in Wales at the weekend because this fixture just has something about it.
Not that you'll be able to convince too many Cardiff fans of its magic at the moment, given the very recent derby outcomes between the sides which is one area where Swansea do have an advantage.
Again, though, up until last season's catastrophe for the Bluebirds, first 0-3 under Mick McCarthy and his five centre-halves, then 0-4 under Steve Morison with his own naive team selection, the records had been remarkably similar again.
In the first 12 Championship and Premier League derbies played this century, Swansea had won five, Cardiff four, with three draws. The Swans' double last season altered that dynamic dramatically. Indeed, of the last seven derbies, Cardiff have managed just one solitary Aden Flint goal, which came in a 1-0 win at the Liberty Stadium a couple of years back.
As far as Cardiff fans are concerned, Hudson needs to find a way of altering that balance. And fast.
"We just don't turn up for derby games, be it Swansea or Bristol City," one City regular told me over the weekend.
Rightly or wrongly, the feeling from many Cardiff fans is that various managers down the years have not 'got' what the derby means.
You would think as a Cardiff City stalwart for five years and a hugely respected former captain, Mark Hudson would.
But a significant part of that isn't about thinking he is getting his own team up for the game, it is understanding, and countering, just what this fixture means to Swansea fans. The chance to get one over their bigger city rivals, the club that supposedly hogs the headlines and TV coverage.
Winning the derby is an opportunity for bragging rights over the capital team. That sheer will is instilled into the club, the manager and the players. It is THE game that matters. They give everything to the cause. and then a bit more on top, too.
First and foremost, Cardiff's manager and players need to comprehend and then match the very reasons for that Swansea intensity from the off, if they are to give their own hugely passionate supporters something to smile about.
Dare we say it, they haven't in recent times. Hudson will need to learn from the errors of his predecessors in the job and alter that mindset. This is unique. Play the game, not the occasion, we keep hearing. That's the whole point, it is an occasion and the reasons for that need to be grasped if Cardiff are to turn around this recent run of derby results.
But that's to be dealt with from Thursday morning onwards. Hudson's immediate focus will rightly be on Wednesday night's daunting challenge against QPR at Loftus Road. His team have been up and down - beating top six candidates Blackburn reasonably comfortably one minute, losing to bottom of the table Coventry the next.
It's a different Cardiff that Swansea fans will see this year. Far less route one or set-pieced orientated, more of a passing style. What they lack, however, is craft, vision, inventiveness and genuine pace in the final third of the pitch.
It is one of the reasons Bluebirds fans covet a return to action of injured young guns Rubin Colwill and Isaak Davies, who between them tick many of those boxes.
Cardiff are up and down, inconsistent. Which, to be fair, is entirely consistent with a completely rebuilt team.
They look more defensively solid and compact than Swansea, without having the goal threat Russell Martin's men possess.
Bizarrely, a few weeks back Martin was coming in for even more flak from some of his own fans than Morison was amongst Bluebirds followers. That run of four victories on the trot - Hull, West Brom, Watford, Sunderland - put Martin firmly back in credit.
In Joel Piroe, Michael Obafemi and Olivier Ntcham, you always sense Swansea have a goal or two in them, while young Oli Cooper has done well.
But Piroe's three-match suspension following his red card for violent conduct against Burnley alters that dynamic. He may not be hitting the heights of last season when bagging an impressive 24 goals, but Piroe did recently have a run of four goals in five games.
Losing him for the derby is clearly a blow for Swansea, a boost for Cardiff.
So what can we expect on Sunday? Does Piroe's absence change things that significantly?
Who knows, is the honest answer. It's a derby, the two teams are similar, anything could happen. Even a Cardiff goal or two, their fans will doubtless be hoping.
In any case, as the two managers would probably say, there's another game to get out of the way first.
Ha, that old cliche again. What is clear this season though is that we're not talking about a Championship full of gold-dust standard. It's a wide open league and, as Swansea proved, string a few wins together and you quickly soar up the table.
The two clubs will each be looking to embark upon a run this week, get momentum and climb that table before we head towards the World Cup winter break.
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