Metis and EUI composite images of the corona during the first three perihelia of the Solar Orbiter mission, from left to right. Labelled boxes mark the ROIs discussed in this work. The EUI image shown for context within the occulted Metis area was obtained in the FSI174 band. The blue line shows the position of the solar limb seen from Earth. Metis images have been normalised by the average coronal intensity profile of that date (obtained as described in Sect. 3.2), while EUI/FSI174 images are displayed on a logarithmic scale.