The new format has produced a deeply predictable 36-team mega-table in which it is already fairly clear who will sit near the top at the end.
He returns to the same stadium with a side punching above its weight, as he has always done on visits here. As a player he never made it on to the pitch against Barça.
The Camp Nou remains in furious full-body renovation, ringed by hoardings, railings and rubble-strewn strips of land. Inside, the fixings are taking shape.
The occasion has the feel of a deeply Emery night: a visit to Barcelona with a team expected to be overmatched.
European football has spent the last two seasons turning its autumn fixture blizzard into a hopeless and baggy blur.
Do not call it a remontada. The focus is the wider European picture as much as any single comeback.
The challenge is huge. The stadium is unfinished. The table is already taking a familiar shape.
Emery’s side has a proper manager, not an emergency appointment of the Lee Hendrie type.