Shut the curtains. Turn up the volume. Never mind, for now, the world outside. This was a genuinely stirring occasion on English football’s borrowed stage, a meeting of fifth and sixth in the Premier League played out in front of an angry, restless crowd under the slightly sepia Anfield lights.

Before kick-off it had seemed likely to be a game made for Jürgen Klopp’s high intensity running game. And so it proved to be, on a slightly wild evening that saw Liverpool take a 2-0 lead in the first leg against Manchester United and Roberto Firmino emerge as the dominant figure, a player who already looks the itinerant tattooed Brazilian embodiment of early Kloppball.

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In the buildup Klopp had called this “the mother of all games”. There are some who would portray it as a more cobwebbed Miss Havisham-ish thing, a little dusty and backward-looking a kind of Europa-inflicted indignity. These two clubs have been English football’s grand old European frontiersmen. But this is also a story of diminishing returns.

The last five seasons have brought just one European quarter final. Defeats come these days at the hands of teams like Besiktas, Basel and Wolfsburg. And yet to linger on any of this – decline, shrinking back, the fear of second-rankdom that so offends the Premier League’s sense of amour propre – is to miss the point completely.

This is the kind of tie that exists in its own distinct pool of light. Anfield was a feverish place before kick-off, the air crackling weirdly with snatches of song, bursts of booing. Klopp stood for a while soaking it up as the flags on the Kop billowed, from Scouse Power to the slightly insistent European Elite. It is a rare quality this ground possesses, a pent-up celebratory urge to fill the night with those old sentimental songs.

The great thing about Klopp is that he gets this. The heavy metal football schtick is as much about emotion and intensity of purpose. Whatever his ultimate successes at Liverpool it already seems certain this will be a warm period in the club’s history, if only because Klopp clearly loves the idea of this club, loves the sound and fury, loves derby games whatever the branding at the side of the pitch.

It is an energy that comes through in his tactical approach, and which was carried on to the pitch here by a player who is fast emerging as a chief lieutenant of the forward press.

Firmino was everywhere in the first half, dextrous in possession and precise with his high speed passing. In Brazil they have a saying about players who go out and “wear the shirt”. When he plays like this, Firmino looks like he wants to be buried in it. Time and again in the first half he laid the ball off and simply sprinted full-pelt into space after a pass, a pocket of space a moment of profitable disorder.

In a way the theory behind the much vaunted gegenpress is a bit like the old direct football stylings of Wing Commander Charles Reep. Both run on the principle goals often come from a fast turnover of possession followed by three or four quick passes, and that to create is often to destroy, steal, force an error. Here Klopp went for the throat, selecting his boldest attacking lineup, with Firmino, Adam Lallana and Philippe Coutinho a hugely energetic triple-press behind Daniel Sturridge.

Firmino’s first charge-down was greeted with a shout of approval from the corrugated noise funnel that is the Kop end. Emre Can, Firmino and Coutinho linked well, Firmino sprinting backwards with the kind of manic purpose most forwards reserve only for going the other way. United absorbed most of this at first, that packed midfield a well-knitted obstacle. And for a while the noise dipped, the game taking on a slower rhythm, drawing Klopp up from his seat to scream at Alberto Moreno, urging more, better, faster.

Moments later the opening goal arrived, made by a stunning no-look-style pass from Firmino that took Daley Blind out of the game. Nathaniel Clyne felt enough contact to go down. Daniel Sturridge buried the penalty with a sense of ceremony.

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And suddenly Liverpool were in one of their frenzied periods. The Klopp way can often break the game down into two fronts, one at each end, with midfield a chaotic no man’s land. There were ragged moments of mass-defence in Liverpool’s box, Mamadou Sakho’s involuntary jerks and shrugs and spasms on the ball particularly striking in the frenzied air (and misleading too: this is simply how he concentrates, dammit).

It seemed fitting the second goal was scored by Firmino in the second half. It seemed fitting too that it should come from high up inside the United area, pressure drawing a mistake and Lallana laying a cool pass for the leader of the press-gang to smash the ball home. Anfield went bats. The air crackled. Red smoke began to billow across shutting out the sky, the night, the desire to be anywhere else but here.

This tie is of course only half over, the home team a work in progress, But for a while, lost in the noise, seduced by Firmino’s slaloming runs, it was easy to look beyond this much maligned competition to the Liverpool that might emerge once the squad has settled, the new stand grown some flesh on its bones, Klopp wound himself a little more into the fabric of the place.