The banner on the Kop before kick-off served as a simple, effective message to the rest of English football, those who can only look on with envy right now: Imagine being us.
Imagine being Liverpool. Imagine being in mid-April with it all still to play for. Imagine going to the very edge of footballing immortality. Just imagine. These fans don't need to.
But imagining is about all any other set of supporters can do right now as Liverpool returned to Premier League duty by going top of it here with another shellacking of Manchester United.
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This 4-0 win was the most convincing against United since, well, the very last one in October when they battered their rivals out of sight at Old Trafford. It's now nine without reply for those keeping count. The Red Devils had never conceded more than seven to the same team in a season before Tuesday night.
Not since Chelsea in 2007 has a team gone this far into a campaign still in contention for an unprecedented quadruple and Jurgen Klopp and his players will surpass the Londoners' end date of May 1 when they take part in a Champions League semi-final in Villarreal on the 3rd of next month. But rather than be burdened by the weight of history that is clearly against them, the Reds have been energised and invigorated by it.
For Liverpool, there can be no sweeter success than this because it was a victory that inflicted damage to both sides in Manchester. After ending Pep Guardiola's treble dreams at Wembley, they leapfrogged their title rivals by overwhelming United in another remarkably lopsided affair between these two giants of the sport.
A key to this latest success was the willingness to ignore the Manchester United badge on the shirts and simply play the confidence-shot, mismash of non-committal players wearing them instead. That is something that hasn't always been the case when these two have met in recent years, but with their visitors enduring a desperate campaign, Klopp's men simply had to make this one count.
So while this skirmish will always remain the biggest in English football, that this win has now taken Liverpool 22 points clear of their great rival only highlights the disparity between them at present. A floundering United have rarely been as patently second best to the Reds in the Premier League era and on the evidence of this season, it will be some time before they can offer genuine threat to either of their most loathed enemies at the summit of the English game.
Liverpool's lead arrived inside the first five minutes when Mohamed Salah scampered clear with Trent Alexander-Arnold down the right before his low cross was turned home by Luis Diaz from about six yards.
All around Anfield then rose to their feet in the seventh minute for applause in tribute to Cristiano Ronaldo's son, who tragically passed away recently. It was a touching moment that proved that even old rivals can put aside the tribalism of the game.
Salah put to bed talk over his mini-drought when he confidently slotted in from Sadio Mane's outrageous clip over the head of the hapless Harry Maguire to make it 2-0 with less than 25 minutes on the clock.
After turning in one of the most complete halves of football this season, Liverpool took their foot off the gas considerably in the second period as a meek United tried to find their way back into things. But the hosts shook off their lethargy in style when Andy Robertson's raid found Diaz down the left before he crossed for Mane to deliver a calm, controlled finish with a little over 20 left to play.
Klopp sent on Naby Keita for the game's outstanding player, Thiago Alcantara, and the Spain international was afforded a standing ovation for what was one of the best Liverpool displays of the entire season. The on-looking Paul Scholes was even moved to applaud the Reds' No.6 as he left the pitch. The United legend clearly knows a midfield masterclass when he sees one.
Salah had his 30th of the season inside the final few moments when he held off a challenge from the beleaguered Aaron Wan-Bissaka before lifting it over David de Gea. As the milestone number became clear, it seemed foolish to have ever dwelled on a slight run without a goal.
That's now nine in six now for the Egyptian against United. How they must hate the sight of Liverpool's No.11 An in-form Salah between now and the end of the season could yet be the difference in this pursuit of glory.
And for United, they are in grave danger of becoming an irrelevance; a relic that survives by eating off its decades of stored-up nostalgia. Some who have followed Liverpool since the 1990s can relate, but those dark days are firmly in the past at Anfield it would seem.
The two clubs are heading in totally opposite directions, even if there is a credible school of thought that United's wealth will insulate them from true catastrophe. As long as the thriving of the social media and commercial departments continue to cloud the judgement of the football operations at Old Trafford, however, Liverpool will remain their superior on the pitch.
The Ralf Rangnick gamble has patently not worked. The 'Godfather of the gegenpress' has a squad that is ill-equipped to get in sync with his particular methods and while the German's reputation has been well earned throughout his time in European football, the appointment of Lokomotiv Moscow's sporting director to one of the top five jobs in world football is starting to look like exactly that; a bizarre experiment that has yielded little.
Next season, Klopp will come up against his fifth different opponent in the Old Trafford dugout and whether it is red-hot favourite Erik ten Hag or not, United must look at their most historic of adversaries for the blueprint on how to return themselves to higher echelons of the game.
That will hurt them to do that in Manchester, no question, but Liverpool are the textbook model of what a prosperous, modern-day super-club looks like in England now, regardless of how many trophies they win from here on in.
Perhaps that fact, more than any acute on-field embarrassment this season, is what will act as the real dagger in the hearts of those from Manchester United.
Imagine being them.
