In a season where Liverpool have been able to justifiably bemoan at least some bad luck, was this the game when it all changed?
General underperformance has been the root cause behind their relatively lowly Premier League position but a number of questionable VAR calls and, more pertinently, a litany of injury problems have contributed also.
But on a night when Jurgen Klopp's men were nowhere near the best, they were still able to toast to three vitally important points as Anfield welcomed back the Reds after nearly seven weeks away. It was not quite a glorious homecoming, but victory was theirs.
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The name Wout Faes might not have been one supporters will have been overly familiar with before Friday, but the Leicester defender perversely wrote his name into folklore with two comical own goals that were enough to see Klopp's men move to within two points of the top four.
Liverpool were not sparkling, by any stretch, but new signing Cody Gakpo was able to salute his new team-mates at full time as he watched on from one of the lounges in the Main Stand.
There's already a neat symmetry to Liverpool's mid-season transfer of Gakpo from PSV Eindhoven. The Netherlands international is a good friend of Virgil van Dijk and already treading the very same path his compatriot travelled to Anfield five years ago this week.
Confirmed as a Liverpool player shortly after Christmas in 2017, Van Dijk then sat in the stands at Anfield for the final home game of the calendar on December 30 as Liverpool saw off the difficult threat of visiting Leicester. Gakpo did likewise on Friday evening and received his first taste of the din his new home can provide after completing a deal worth an initial £37m earlier this week.
Gakpo, who has 17 goals and as many assists in 23 appearances across all competitions for club and country this term, will provide Klopp's squad with a huge injection of attacking quality both for the second half of this campaign and across the near six years he has signed on for on Merseyside.
But like Luis Diaz last January - and Van Dijk all those years ago - it's the initial buoyancy of concluding a big-money, mid-season signing that Liverpool can benefit from in the coming days and weeks.
With the reigning Dutch Player of the Year ready to be integrated into a squad that looks recharged and hungry following the return of domestic action, Liverpool could yet embark on the sort of the second half they had at the start of 2022 when they would eventually skirt the very edges of football immortality. Six points from six is a great start.
Such grandiose achievements will not be necessary this time around to deem this term a success, Liverpool merely need to haul themselves back into the top four as far as their league fortunes are concerned and there is no question that Gakpo will at least aid that between January and May. His signing is a long-term project, but one that could galvanise in the here and now.
Harvey Elliott for Fabinho was the one Liverpool change with the Brazilian's partner, Rebeca, expecting their first child. The No.3's absence was keenly felt inside five minutes when Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall cut through a buttery soft midfield before keeping his composure when one-on-one with Alisson Becker.
The Foxes man is not exactly renowned as one of the division's great speed merchants and Klopp will have been furious with the manner of the goal as a result. That the defensive-minded Fabinho's replacement was a diminutive ball-playing teenager in Elliott underlined the need for more steel in Klopp's options for the centre of the park.
Elliott was not directly culpable for the goal - far from it - but it underlined that there is no direct replacement for the powerful Fabinho, whose own form has even come under the microscope at times this term.
Klopp hinted at further business in the January window in his pre-match press conference and it is clear as day that reinforcements are needed in the centre of the pitch. Short-term, stop-gap options have rarely worked in recent years but the Reds cannot risk making the same mistake in two transfer windows.
If there is a need for a ball-winning general, Klopp can at least take heart from the presence of Thiago Alcantara in the engine room. The former Bayern Munich man was outstanding both in and out of possession, turning in a performance of real craft and graft. He was, by a distance, Liverpool's best performer on the night.
If luck was on Leicester's side when Danny Ward's clearance struck Mohamed Salah before Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain's assist was correctly flagged as offside, there was no such Foxes fortuity for the rest of the half as Faes took centre stage.
The first owed so much to Trent Alexander-Arnold’s fizzed delivery. The Belgian sliced an attempt at a clearance over Ward into the top corner to restore a scarcely deserved leveller.
If that was rank misfortune, then only the Leicester defender will know what he was doing when Darwin Nunez's clip over Ward rebounded off the post. Under no pressure, Faes panicked and hammered a clearance into his own net. Perhaps the one stroke of Faes fortune is that it is too late to feature on the Christmas bloopers DVDs. The cries of "shoot!" from the Kop as Faes took possession in the Leicester area in the second half was gallows humour in the extreme.
Salah spurned a great chance to put some daylight between the teams when the lively Nunez played him through with an inch-perfect through ball before Ward later made a good save to keep out the Egyptian inside the final 20 minutes.
Nunez almost made the result safe after a sweeping team move ended with him firing on to the roof of the net. The cries of his name after the chance - and virtually everything else he did - showed just how much the supporters are with their summer signing; they are desperate for him to take flight. He will soon enough. Klopp, more than anyone, is convinced of that.
"Three-nil to the Leicester boys!" sang the away end in the final moments. Having droned on about feeding the Scousers here a little over 12 months ago, this was a much more welcome piece of terrace witticism instead. It’s a night Faes will never forget, however much he’ll try.
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