There is a specific kind of sting that comes with watching an opposition team celebrate on the Anfield turf, but Sunday afternoon felt different.
It wasn't just the scoreline, a bruising 0-3 defeat, or simply the fact that down to ten men, Andoni Iraola’s side looked completely unable to stem the tide as Erling Haaland, Jérémy Doku, and Rayan Cherki carved through the backline.
What really rubbed salt into open Liverpool wounds was the theatrical nature of Manchester City’s post-match jubilation, coming just days after the Premier League's independent commission found them guilty of breaching financial regulations.
For anyone sitting in the Main Stand or Kop on Sunday, the defiance from the away end alongside the wild celebrations in the tunnel felt targeted a deliberate reaction to an Anfield crowd that had spent 90 minutes reminding the visitors of their looming off-field reckoning.
Yet, when facing the media in Tuesday's pre-match press conference ahead of the Citizens' Champions League tie against Paris Saint-Germain, both Enzo Maresca and Rúben Dias doubled down, utterly dismissing the scrutiny.
Asked directly during the PSG media duty about whether their Anfield celebrations crossed a line in light of the verdict, Maresca came out defensive:
"Criticised for what? We won 0-3 at Anfield, what do you want us to do?""And even if it was 0-1 it would be exactly the same. We, me here today, the players here today, want to win tomorrow's game. We work every day to win games. We can be focused. The rest is things from outside we need to deal with. We were so, so happy inside the pitch and you cannot imagine inside the changing room."
Maresca’s defiance was matched by that of defender Dias, sat alongside his manager ahead of the PSG fixture to address the wall of noise from opposition supporters head-on, framing the hostile Anfield reception as extra motivation for a squad operating under an unprecedented dark cloud.
"Personally and I really feel like I speak for the whole group, we trust the club," Dias insisted during the media session.
"We're very calm and we're very focused on enjoying football. We know the team we've got, we want to make the most out of it, we want to win, and that's the only thing in our mind. If there's more or less noise or whatever the reason the noise is, at the end of the day it's all the same, same as before, because people don't love us winning and we love to win."
"It was great, amazing support from our fans,"Dias added regarding the travelling support in the lower Anfield Road end.
"They stood behind us, we will fight for them always to the end. It was a special occasion to get that win."
For Liverpool fans, hearing City brush off the controversy as mere "noise" while celebrating across the pitch is a bitter pill to swallow.
Away from the narrative of financial breaches and defiance, the reality on the pitch presents an immediate, uncomfortable truth for Iraola and his players: Liverpool looked feeble.
A man down or not, the ease with which Man City bypassed the midfield and exposed the defensive structure is the kind of result that can rattle a squad's confidence to its core.
The Reds don't have the luxury of dwelling on Sunday's indignity for long. With a midweek European trip to Austria to face LASK in the Champions League, followed immediately by a Premier League visit to Brentford, Iraola has to rebuild his side's belief instantly.
Manchester City left Anfield making noise, but if Liverpool don't respond on the pitch in Linz, the quiet anxiety growing around will only get louder.
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