One of the most important and decisive periods in this season will come during a month when a ball won't be kicked in the Premier League.
In seven weeks' time, the domestic campaign will grind to a halt at a point in the programme when it has usually just started to gather some momentum. Players will jet off to spend time with their countries playing in a tournament that remains the pinnacle, just not usually at this time of the year.
The looming presence of the winter World Cup in Qatar is uncharted territory for every Premier League club, manager and player. It's acting as something of a leveller in a season that nobody has experienced before.
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It's not going to produce a shock on the proportions of Leicester City winning the league, but it does make everything a little less predictable, not just in the run of 13 games in 43 days that precede the tournament, but in how teams cope afterwards.
There will be a few different scenarios for Premier League clubs in that six-week break from the weekend of November 13 to Boxing Day, when hostilities resume. There will be those clubs at the top of the league who will lose a large chunk of their squad to the World Cup and then a couple of squads who will be touched only lightly by absences.
Both present different challenges for clubs, but it's clearly those with the most internationals at the World Cup who face the greater test of their approach.
Some big names won't be at the tournament, such as Erling Haaland and Mohamed Salah, but most of their Manchester City and Liverpool teammates will. How City and Liverpool keep their star men fit and in form in a break as long as summer, when they don't have the players to train with at the Etihad Campus or Kirkby, will need some careful management.
Liverpool have already confirmed they will hold a training camp in Dubai, which offers easy access for players to join up once they are knocked out of the tournament. Other clubs have yet to make their own plans clear.
Players who go to the tournament will at least maintain their fitness, continuing to tick over and train in a high-pressure environment. The concern around those players is how they will cope in the second half of the season, both in terms of fatigue and any potential emotional lows after the tournament.
But for those players who aren't at the World Cup, they need to maintain their fitness during what is essentially another off-season. By mid-November, they will be operating at something close to full fitness, but going six weeks without a game is obviously going to see that match sharpness and conditioning gradually disappear.
Most clubs are looking at giving players a couple of weeks off before resuming training, either here or at a camp abroad. For a club like Manchester United, the picture is complicated by the number of players on the fringes of selection.
Barring injury, it is all but certain Diogo Dalot, Harry Maguire, Lisandro Martinez, Raphael Varane, Tyrell Malacia, Casemiro, Fred, Christian Eriksen, Bruno Fernandes, Antony and Cristiano Ronaldo will be at the World Cup.
Luke Shaw is likely to be there, although a lack of action at Old Trafford might yet become problematic. Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford are both battling to be in Gareth Southgate's 26-man England squad as well. It is unlikely both will make the cut and it could well be neither of them does.
Anthony Martial is struggling with injury and is running out of time to establish himself in the mind of Didier Deschamps, while David de Gea is also out of the picture with Spain at the moment.
If Sancho, Rashford and Martial miss out then it presents an opportunity to United, as long as they get it right. Erik ten Hag might get some key first-team players to work with during that six-week break.
Martin Dubravka, Tom Heaton, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Victor Lindelof, Scott McTominay, Donny van de Beek, Alejandro Garnacho and Anthony Elanga will all be absent in Qatar, either because their countries haven't qualified or they are too far out of the picture for international selection.
With 26-man squads for the tournament set to be confirmed by October 21, United and their Premier League rivals have just a month to wait before they have a firmer idea of who will be available for training and who is going to be serving their country.
Once they know that, then they have to make sure they get their plans for the tournament and the first couple of weeks of domestic action after Christmas just right.
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