There was still over an hour and a half until kick-off when the Manchester United bus carrying Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and his players crept past the Hotel TIA and towards the hundreds of Liverpool fans lining either side of the Anfield Road. A few lusty chants of “Oh Manchester is full of ----” filled the air and a handful of eggs were thrown at the blacked-out windows of the coach before it snaked round and slowly disappeared into the players’ entrance.

It was certainly a far cry from the greeting given to Manchester City before the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final at Anfield in April 2018, when their coach was so badly damaged they had to source a replacement for the journey home, let alone some of the scenes that provided a violent, volcanic backdrop to meetings between the sides in the 80s.

“Welcome to Man United fans” read the signs outside the entrances to gates N, P and Q at the Anfield Road end but, while no United supporter would ever feel welcome or entirely at ease in this part of the world on match day, it was hard, certainly outside the stadium and away from the confines of the terraces that would soon be trading familiar insults, to detect a particularly unpleasant, simmering edge to proceedings.