If the Liverpool players were in any doubt as to how much preparations would be ramped up this week by Jurgen Klopp, then his team sheet in Leipzig revealed all.
A starting line-up that wouldn't look out of place when their Premier League season begins again at Craven Cottage on August 6 was selected in the sweltering Saxony heat.
Klopp named the same back four that started the Champions League final behind a midfield of Naby Keita, Thiago Alcantara and Fabinho, while there were also starts for Mohamed Salah, Luis Diaz and Roberto Firmino.
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"You want to create difficult situations in pre-season and it's hot, a sold-out stadium and an extremely good opponent, so what more do you want?" he asked, pre-match. "I want to have a lot of information to work with and it might be good or bad. But I just want to work with it. First and foremost, I want to recognise us not just from the shirts, but how we play and that'd be cool."
The information gathered from this 5-0 hammering of RB Leipzig then will lend itself towards positive feedback for Mohamed Salah and Darwin Nunez, who added a quartet of second-half strikes to his colleague's early opener at the Red Bull Arena.
One suspects Klopp gets a kick out of stepping up the gears significantly at this juncture of the summer. Double sessions will be the order of the day for the coming week as the players are indiscriminately whipped into shape by famed taskmaster Andreas Kornmayer, the manager's fitness general. "I don't think any of us look forward to Austria!" admitted Andy Robertson at full time and he was only half joking.
With the commercial legs of far-flung destinations like Thailand and Singapore in the rear-view mirror, this next week or so is Klopp' s own as far as he is concerned; the chance to build the base levels of fitness for the long months ahead and given Liverpool's 63-game marathon campaign last time out, the manager has ample evidence to demand that his players get themselves fitter than most.
Salah gave the visitors the lead comfortably inside 10 minutes with a composed finish from Firmino's tee-up before he almost squeezed a second past former Reds goalkeeper Peter Gulacsi moments later. With Sadio Mane now in a different shade of all red at Bayern Munich, much rests on Salah's shoulders if Liverpool are to get near the game's biggest prizes again this season, but that is nothing new to the Egyptian at least.
With a brand new, history-making contract in the back pocket and a full pre-season schedule behind him, Premier League defenders will likely be running scared when he sets off to secure a fourth Golden Boot in six seasons next month. His hour here was more than enough to suggest he is ready to go again.
Unlike the wholesale changes of Thailand and Singapore, a more conservative approach was taken for the second period as Klopp made a mere four substitutes. In came Jordan Henderson, Joel Matip, Kostas Tsimikas and Nunez, who wasted little time getting off the mark.
The £64m man was given spot-kick duties when Diaz was upended by substitute goalkeeper Janis Blaswich. Nunez dispatched his first within three minutes of the restart before finishing with aplomb for his second after 51. The third arrived before 70 minutes when the excellent Harvey Elliott, one of a raft of changes on the hour mark, threaded one across the face of goal for Nunez to poke home and complete a hat-trick.
Another smart knockdown to the lively Fabio Carvalho was followed up by a firm header that was repelled by Blaswich as Nunez turned in the sort of all-action performance that will whet the appetite for fans back on Merseyside.
But his night wasn't over yet, as the game ticked into its final few seconds, more impressive work from Carvalho saw him drive at the Leipzig defence before the new No.27 finished it off with a side-footed finish for his fourth and Liverpool's fifth.
It completed a dream cameo that showcased everything that he is about as a goal poacher supreme. Early days, of course, but his arrival looks like it will give Liverpool's attack a new dimension to it. It was also the perfect riposte, if he felt it was necessary.
Nunez came in for some bizarre, knee-jerk criticism across certain sections of social media after his debut against Manchester United in Thailand, but his goals, the second in particular, offered a tantalising glimpse into what made the 23-year-old one of the most in-demand strikers on the continent last season.
It will likely take some time adjusting for all concerned as a Mane-less Liverpool reconfigure with a bona-fide target man leading the line for the first real time of the Klopp era and Anfield insiders have already spoken of the fine tuning needed to get the most from a player who may yet become the most expensive of all time at the club at £85m.
And while the rough edges of the approach play with Nunez up top will sometimes make themselves known, there is no greater commodity than goals to compensate for that while the kinks are gradually ironed out in the Reds' attack. The night belonged to him.
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