Ten minutes before full time, when it was clear that their resurgent team had swept Real Madrid aside, the Kop burst into song.
‘Liverpool, Liverpool, top of the league,’ came the refrain. They could have made it plural. As Arne Slot’s charmed start as manager gathers pace, everything he touches is turning to gold.
Liverpool are indeed top of the league: top of the Champions League table and eight points clear at the top of Premier League, too. Just when it seems things can’t get any better at Anfield, they do.
Liverpool didn’t just beat Carlo Ancelotti’s all-conquering side in this tie: they outclassed them on their way to a 2-0 win that was the absolute minimum they deserved.
Jurgen Klopp is not the type to curse his luck but he could be forgiven for thinking that Slot has been a master of good timing.
Just as Manchester City seem to be imploding in the Premier League, so this Madrid side looks like a shadow of the sides that stopped Klopp amassing far more European silverware.
Alexis Mac Allister opened the scoring for the home side in the 57th minute after neat interplay
Cody Gakpo secured the points for the home side with a thumping header from close range
Kylian Mbappe squandered a chance to equalise for the visitors on a bruising night for the defending champions
Klopp’s Liverpool sides played Real six times during his management and lost five and drew one, a sequence that included defeats in two Champions League finals, in Kyiv and Paris.
Slot beat the champions of Europe at the first time of asking. And beat them with ease, courtesy of second half goals from Alexis Mac Allister and Cody Gakpo.
There should have been more. Mo Salah missed a chance to strengthen his hand even more in his contract negotiations with the club when he blasted a penalty wide.
The class of his overall play, though, did not go unnoticed. ‘FSG,’ a message to Liverpool’s owners written on a banner in the Kop read, ‘He fires a bow. Now give Mo his dough.’
Mo deserves his dough. He certainly outperformed his opposite number, Kylian Mbappe, who endured a personal nightmare at Anfield.
Mbappe was a shadow of the player who has set two successive World Cup finals alight and earned a reputation as the best player in the world.
His general play was wasteful and utterly lacking in confidence. He had a golden chance to drag Madrid back into the game with a penalty that would have brought them level but he hit it without conviction and it was saved comfortably by Caoimhin Kelleher.
Liverpool are two points clear at the top of the European table. Real Madrid sit 24th. Uefa are staring at the horror of the world’s biggest club not qualifying for the knockouts.
Jude Bellingham tried to drive his team forward from midfield but was well mars by Ryan Gravenberch
Carlo Ancelotti’s side sit perilously close to the qualification cliff edge after falling to 24th after their third loss in five Champions League matches
He had eight goals in 16 games for Madrid before this match but after so but after his move from France saw so many false dawns, his actual arrival was always likely to be an anti-climax.
Mbappe’s night did not start well. Less than four minutes had gone when he dallied on the ball midway inside the Liverpool half and was robbed by the quicksilver Salah.
Salah was away. He ran at the retreating Madrid defence and slipped a pass inside to Darwin Nunez. When Nunez fizzed a low shot at Thibault Courtois, the Madrid goalkeeper pushed it out.
It fell to Raul Asencio but when he tried to control it, he only succeeded in pushing it towards his own goal. He lunged after it and cleared it just as it was about to roll over the line.
The elegant ease with which Liverpool played through the Madrid press in the opening 20 minutes was bewitching to behold. The axis that ran through Virgil van Dijk and Ryan Gravenberch was particularly effective.
Liverpool came close again midway through the half when the ball bobbled around the Madrid area and fell to Nunez. Nunez tried to hammer it past Courtois but the goalkeeper rushed out and blocked the shot with his body.
Bellingham, who had come into game accusing the English press, somewhat mystifyingly, of turning him into a scapegoat during the Euros this summer, had a quiet half. If that is construed by Bellingham as vicious criticism, so be it.
It is to be hoped that someone advises him soon that his persecution complex is unfounded. Bellingham has received a steady stream of praise in the English press, because that is what his performances have deserved. No one made him a scapegoat.
Caoimhin Kelleher smartly stopped Mbappe’s penalty to maintain Liverpool’s lead in the second half
Mohamed Salah couldn’t capitalise as his an effort from the spot went wide of the target
Arne Slot’s side returned to the top of the Champions League table and maintained their perfect record
If he has read his press and decided it is negative, that is up to him. If someone is whispering poison in his ear, then that is a shame because he is widely recognised as one of the best things to have happened to English football for some time and it would be a shame if some of those around him soured that.
He and his teammates struggled to get a foothold in the game. Even when Real attacked, Liverpool turned it into a triumph. Arda Guler tried to free Mbappe down the left but Conor Bradley hurtled across and snuffed out the danger with a superb, crunching tackle. It got the biggest cheer of the night.
Liverpool got stronger as the half wore on. Nunez headed just wide and Curtis Jones curled over when well placed but Slot’s team lacked the final composure to finish off all their good work.
Liverpool made the best chance of the game so far two minutes after half time when Alexis Mac Allister floated a ball into the box to meet a superb run from Bradley. Bradley rose and directed his header downwards but Courtois produced a fine diving save to push it out.
A minute later, the two players combined again and this time Courtois had no answer. Mac Allister initiated a one-two with Bradley and when the Argentine midfielder ran on to it, he got to it just before a Raul Asencio and lashed his shot past Courtois.
Madrid thought they had found a way back into the game when Andy Robertson was adjudged to have fouled Lucas Vazquez in the box just before the hour. Mbappe took the kick but Kelleher flung himself to his left and saved brilliantly. Another mighty roar of jubilation rent the night air.
Midway through the half, Salah ran on to a pass from Bradley and sprinted at Ferland Mendy. Salah turned Mendy inside out and Mendy brought him down in the box. Salah blasted the penalty with all his might but, to general astonishment, it flew wide.
It didn’t matter. Fifteen minutes from time, Robertson played a short corner and when he got the return ball, he swung the ball into the six-yard-box. Substitute Cody Gakpo rose unchallenged and powered the ball past Courtois.
