Having appeared as though a corner had finally been turned in their season, Liverpool instead charged head first into the white-walled dead-end that is Real Madrid.
Jurgen Klopp has probably spent much of the past few months privately believing that his best passage to next season's Champions League was to win the competition itself for a seventh time, given his domestic struggles, but the Reds will wake up on Wednesday morning feeling that it is now in fact the Premier League that offers them the easiest route once more.
For 15 minutes, it looked as though this iteration of Real Madrid were about to be added to the long list of opposition sides who had been forced to go on bended knee by the power of Anfield on a European night. Early goals from Darwin Nunez and Mohamed Salah had this one looking like a rerun of a continental classic as Liverpool scorched out the traps and into a position of dominance.
