Leicester City fans have been here before.
They recognise this feeling of things coming together at just the right moment, of their team quietly gelling as rivals flounder, and of the media dismissing their early season form as an anomaly rather than the beginning of something special.
The reward on offer this time around is considerably smaller, of course, but there are striking similarities between Leicester's Premier League title triumph of 2015-16 and this season's bid for a top-four finish.
There is simply no good reason to dismiss their chances. Any pessimism surrounding Leicester's hopes of maintaining their strong start is rooted in name recognition; the blind assumption that 'The Big Six' is unbreakable.
One would have thought that Leicester’s still scarcely believable success in 2016 would have taught us to appreciate football’s transience, and to read the signs as they emerge.
Tottenham Hotspur are struggling to climb back up the mountain after last year’s Champions League final appearance, Arsenal need more time to rebuild following a decade of decay under Arsene Wenger, Chelsea are as inconsistent as one would expect from a team of kids, and Manchester United are in full meltdown.
Leicester, with an excellent first 11 and clear tactical identity, should be considered favourites (behind the runaway top two) to qualify for next year’s Champions League.
The most under-appreciated aspect of Brendan Rodgers’ reign to date is the speed with which he has created a vision for the club.
Leicester are one of just a small handful of Premier League teams whose tactical battle plan is easy to define; in an age of short managerial spells and the constant threat of impending disunity, that is a genuinely impressive achievement.
Leicester press high (they make more tackles than any other club) and transition quickly into the final third, placing emphasis on using possession football for incisive vertical passes into the attacking players.
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In this sense, they are not too dissimilar to Saturday's opponents at Anfield, Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool: every Foxes player is instructed to play direct ground passes, to always look forward in order to shift the ball into the penalty area before the opposition has the chance to get into a neat defensive shape.
Whether winning the ball high up the pitch and breaking forward in a Klopp-esque counter-press or building from the back and looking for long vertical passes straight into the playmakers, Rodgers’ Leicester have a consistent tactical ideology.
What this gives the Foxes is a collective sense of urgency, a grand plan to get behind, and, coupled with Rodgers’ usual dedication to intricate tactical work on the training ground, this has created a sense of unity on the pitch. That same cannot be said for any of the other top-four challengers outside of Manchester City and Liverpool.
What makes Leicester markedly different from Liverpool, though, is their use of dual playmakers: Youri Tielemans and James Maddison float in tandem as false eights, similar to how David Silva and Kevin de Bruyne operated during City’s 2017-18 season.
Both Tielemans and Maddison sit in the gaps between the opposition defence and midfield, shimmying across on the blind side of the opponent to receive vertical balls into feet in the No.10 space.
Rodgers has clearly learned a lot from watching Guardiola. The City boss always looks to maximise the use of half-spaces (the column that falls between full-back and centre-back) because of the unique number of diagonal passing options available into the final third from these positions.
The chief reason Rodgers has copied this approach is so that Tielemans and Maddison can feed Jamie Vardy as he makes runs in behind.
Many thought Vardy would be the wrong type of player for Rodgers. That theory already emphatically disproved, it appears the doubters underestimated the Irishman's flexibility and problem-solving skills.
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The marriage of Klopp and Guardiola tactics gives Leicester an idiosyncratic attacking style; they want to funnel things through the middle while also counter-pressing.
That this concept is so easy to grasp, and so easy to see when watching Leicester play, is testament to the clarity of vision that Rodgers has given his players.
Leicester don’t dominate possession anything like as much as Man City, and so Maddison and Tielemans could not start so high up the pitch without an athlete like Wilfried Ndidi at the base of midfield.
Ndidi is arguably the Premier League’s most under-rated player; his tackling and intercepting provide the foundation on which Leicester's game plan is constructed.
But he isn’t the only player who slips under the radar. In Ben Chilwell and Ricardo Pereira, Leicester have two of the league’s best full-backs, players as adept at creating changes in the final third as defending one-on-one near their own box.
Leicester’s primary attacking tactic inevitably makes the pitch narrower, drawing the opponent inwards too, and so the value of marauding over-lapping full-backs cannot be overstated.
They either exploit spaces left on the flanks or, if marked, help stretch the opposition lines wide to create more room for the playmakers.
Still, Leicester do have a couple of flaws that could hold them back this season.
The first is in central defence, where Caglar Soyuncu – despite becoming a fan favourite thanks to some heroic blocks and clever passes - looks a notable downgrade on Harry Maguire.
He doesn’t quite have the positional sense of Maguire, and given he is playing alongside the slow Jonny Evans, Leicester's centre-back partnership must be regarded as the weakest among the Champions League hopefuls. Indeed, Rodgers could definitely do with a new defensive signing in January.
Their biggest weakness, however, is Rodgers’ belief in his own players. In three matches against 'Big Six 'opponents so far this season he has abandoned his usual tactics for a more conservative flat 4-3-3, moving Maddison out wide to make space for defensive midfielder Hamzah Choudhury.
The latter is unable to play quick vertical passes, creating a flatter midfield and, overall, a more disjointed Leicester, who should have beaten both Chelsea and Manchester United, only for Rodgers’ hesitancy to cost them five points.
Leicester ought to be approaching such games as equals, not wannabes hoping to scrape a point.
The only thing really holding them back in 2019-20, then, is an inferiority complex.
If Rodgers adresses this lack of self-belief, nothing will get in their way of Champions League qualification.