This is the kind of result that reverberates up and down the Premier League.

Manchester United had waited almost a decade to win in the league at Anfield but, in condemning Liverpool to a fourth successive defeat in all competitions, they may just have breathed life into Ruben Amorim’s tenure at the club. The scenes of celebration in the away end at the final whistle certainly suggested as much.

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United, remarkably given the start they had endured this term, are just two points behind the champions. Arne Slot, his side undermined by profligacy at one end and sloppiness at the other, had endured a first home defeat in the Premier League for 400 days courtesy of Harry Maguire’s late winner.

Of the quartet of losses they have endured of late, this defeat hurt most of all.

This was frantic from the outset. Bryan Mbeumo, played onside by Ibrahima Konate as he ran beyond a startled Virgil van Dijk, fired the visitors ahead after only 63 seconds with Liverpool expecting a referee’s whistle given Alexis Mac Allister was prone on the turf having suffered a head injury. The Argentina international had inadvertently connected with Van Dijk’s elbow as the pair competed for aerial possession with Mbeumo in the buildup to the goal.

That set the tone. Liverpool were always vulnerable defensively, with Bruno Fernandes clipping the outside of the woodwork when he should have scored and Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha a constant menace, but always posed a threat of their own. Cody Gapko struck the post three times — once with a deflected cross, twice with rasping drives — while Senne Lammens saved Alexander Isak’s shot with an outstretched right foot.

The champions flung on their full attacking resources in the latter stages and pushed desperately for parity. Mohamed Salah and substitute Hugo Ekitike fired wide with local panic setting in until Gakpo was perfectly positioned to tap in Federico Chiesa’s low cross.

Yet if that was supposed to be the prelude to a late Liverpool winner, then no one had considered Maguire’s late intervention. His header from a delicious Fernandes cross sent the away contingent into raptures, celebrations that were maintained when Gapko nodded wide of a