So this is the idea, then. A dozen games into the Ruben Amorim era, it finally feels like the 39-year-old's plan is beginning to show itself. On a Merseyside day that should have only been good for staying under the duvet, Manchester United stood up to be counted.

After listening to their head coach drum home the threat of relegation and opening up about the fear his players are feeling, they finally threw off the shackles. It might be premature to label this a coming-of-age moment under Amorim, but it did feel like we were watching his United grow before our very eyes.

From a stable, defensive beginning to a wild end where they looked as likely to win the game as Liverpool, United went from a side worried about relegation to one that should be aiming far higher.

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Amorim had complained about his lack of training ground time since starting in the job, a job he wanted to start in the summer for that very reason. Having arrived at Carrington with what he himself has said was his ‘only idea’, he then had no time to implement it.

Two games, a couple of recovery sessions, and a day to focus on planning for the opposition took up all of his early weeks. United had become so detached from Amorim's vision that he felt his back-to-back sessions last week could only cover the basics rather than add any flourishes to a game plan he would have wanted to implement across the last six weeks.

"I am more focused on our basics," he had said on Friday. "When you don’t have the basics, you can’t do it and so you have to focus on them. For two days we have just been doing the basics, focusing on our idea to play football."

But the value of that time at Carrington was quickly evident. Amorim sounded bullish in his pre-match interviews with broadcasters, and it didn’t take long to see why. This was his idea of how to play football.

Liverpool had an early spell of pressure, but United coped with it comfortably. Their out-of-possession shape was more 5-4-1, and they were quick to get back into it, blocking off space between the lines. By the half-hour mark, Liverpool looked out of ideas, and United had begun to exert a degree of control that had been unprecedented for them at Anfield in recent times, even the goalless draw they managed last season.

They also started to create chances. Diogo Dalot should have done better with a final ball for Amad, and Rasmus Hojlund fluffed his line in front of The Kop for the second time in as many seasons, with Alisson making the save.

By the time United took the lead, the game felt entirely in the balance, and the goal owed plenty to their growing confidence levels. Lisandro Martinez stepped in front of Cody Gakpo to intercept a pass and kept going, eventually collecting an excellent pass from Bruno Fernandes and smashing a shot in off the crossbar.

Arguably, United's response to what happened next was even more impressive. A week ago, they would have collapsed when Gakpo and Mohamed Salah put the hosts ahead and The Kop finally found their voice.

However, a group of players that Amorim described as "sometimes afraid on the pitch" on Friday had gone from lambs to lions. Amad slammed in a deserved equaliser after good work from Alejandro Garnacho, and in a helter-skelter ending, they could have won it.

It said a lot about United's 90-minute transformation that when Andre Onana picked up a corner in injury time, he didn't collapse on it, but instead looked to launch a counter-attack. A few seconds later, Dalot was breaking down the left on the overlap.

United didn't win it, but their intent at the end of the game felt like a demonstration of how their belief in Amorim's idea had grown in just one afternoon.

A game they probably wanted to be called off on Sunday morning might just end up being transformative.