Most of the focus on Manchester United's capitulation at Anfield has been on the players, but Erik ten Hag can't be immune from criticism either.
The United boss saw his side give pretty much as good as they got for the vast majority of the first half on Sunday, and that's despite setting them up in a fairly unconventional manner.
Because while the 11 players who started the game were the exact same 11 who began the successful Carabao Cup final a week earlier, it could be said that five of his six most advanced players were being asked to do different things.
There was Casemiro and Fred, who were stationed on opposite sides of central midfield to where they played at Wembley.
Then Bruno Fernandes, who was moved from the No.10 position to the left, Wout Weghorst, who replaced Fernandes in the middle, and Marcus Rashford, who was played ahead of Weghorst and centrally despite all the pre-match build-up focusing on his battle with Trent Alexander-Arnold down the Liverpool right.
Of those six most advanced players, only Antony stayed in the same position on the right, pushing incredibly high up the pitch and not doing much to help his full-back Diogo Dalot.
It was this dereliction of duty that Liverpool exposed shortly before half-time with Andy Robertson's superb ball to Cody Gakpo before the Dutchman's fine finish, but the alarm bells had been ringing for United before then.
And that would have been on Jurgen Klopp's mind when he performed his half-time ritual of racing down the tunnel and into the dressing rooms as quick as he can.
His latest burst of speed was caught on Liverpool's YouTube channel, and it certainly paid dividends.
Klopp likes to get into a private area of the dressing room immediately at the break in order to analyse video clips of the first half that his team have prepared for him.
Speaking in an interview in 2018, he said: "Sometimes I’m really waiting for half-time. It’s like ‘come on four minutes, five minutes to go,’ so we can fix things.
"The break is a very important time. I give the players first the opportunity to breathe, to drink and the medical staff checks if they are all alright.
"Then we watch a few situations from the first half, only when they are really clear for our message we use them. If not, we don’t and I talk to the players.
"I really like it because it’s a very important situation. For example: you are 2-0 in the lead and everybody knows 2-0 doesn’t decide the game at half time, but actually sometimes it feels like it."
Klopp tends to leave the players alone for that first spell of five minutes or so, with his trusted coach Peter Krawietz leading the video analysis and presenting clips to the manager showing where Liverpool can improve in attacking and defensive situations.
“You probably always see me with the book, writing things down,” Krawietz told the Reds website in 2020.
“What I’m doing there is knowing exactly the situations where we do well or the situations where we have problems, where we don’t probably find the solutions.
“I notice situations where we have problems in defending so probably the opponent can create chances against us.
“Then we try to create an overview and shortly before half-time, with around 35 minutes played, I try on the bench, together probably with Pep [Lijnders, the assistant manager] and Jurgen as well, to get an idea on what are the talking points for half-time."
At half-time on Sunday those likely talking points would have been the space being afforded to Liverpool in wide areas, particularly for Robertson down the left where he was routinely left to run by Antony.
On the right, Fernandes was also pushed higher up, but with Alexander-Arnold electing to play in a more withdrawn role, that created plenty of space for Harvey Elliott on the right of the midfield three, and then in turn Mo Salah ahead of him.
Robertson, Elliott and Salah were so key to Liverpool's attacks as they punished United from out wide, with the unpredictable movement and interchanging of Gakpo and Darwin Nunez proving so deadly in front of goal.
It was an incredibly fluid Liverpool performance in the second half, but it was certainly helped by United's ill-discipline, which had been noted by the furious Ten Hag afterwards.
"How we conceded the goals is really annoying," said the Dutchman.
"The third was a counter with unprofessional decisions – not following in, and then running in, moving forwards, giving space away in midfield, not tracking back.
“So then it is 3-0 and the game is lost, but as a team you have to stick together. That is what we didn’t do. It is a surprise for me, I didn’t see this from my team. I don’t think it is us. I don’t think it is Manchester United. It was really bad, really poor.”
The United boss lamented his side's attitude in the second half then, but in reality that second period came as a result of Liverpool exploiting the weaknesses within the manager's first half setup, which didn't change regardless of the scoreline.
Liverpool capitalising on United's frailties would likely have come from the video analysis that Klopp likes to run to.
“These are very intense minutes and then when I am happy that I have found a maximum of one, two or three clips which I think can help, my colleagues Jurgen and Pep come in and I present the clips and tell them what I think could help," continued Krawietz in that 2020 interview.
“Then we make a decision together, if we want to show it or not, and the question behind this decision is always orientated on the solution, or one solution, for the second half and if it is helpful for the players that we show it.
“We make the decision ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and if we decide to show the one or two or three, maximum, clips, then we are going to present and show these pictures to the players. This is the process that goes on.”
While it isn't clear just what Klopp would have shown his players to support his team talk on Sunday, it is likely that the vast amounts of space out wide that United were leaving was a hot topic.
Once Klopp was able to present his team's findings to his players, the goals flowed.
