This was meant to be Manchester United’s biggest game of the season, and therefore the moment when their manager and players put on their most united front to deliver a performance that would send their fans home happy. Instead it was the greatest example yet of their woeful inadequacies.

In front of more than 40,000 Liverpool fans who love nothing more than watching United struggle, Louis van Gaal and his men handed the locals everything they had dreamed of since the two sides were drawn together in the Europa League last-16 draw. If there is such a thing as a lucky 2-0 defeat, then this was exactly that.

Let us make no bones about the fact that United really needed to lay down a marker at Anfield on Thursday. In a campaign which has seen them stumble from the acceptable to the ridiculous at regular intervals, the Europa League had fast become their most probable route to a Champions League spot. This competition is not the throwaway extra it once was, and certainly not for a United side struggling to have any say in the Premier League’s top-four race.

Yet from the first minute to the last, Manchester United were completely outplayed by Liverpool. It is a sentence which will give United fans the chills, but it is the searing reality all the same. Were in not for David de Gea’s latest masterclass it would have been 5-0 at the very least.

Exactly what Van Gaal’s approach was to this game is very hard to say since there was no clear plan evident at any point. A man who has previously enjoyed a charmed life against the Merseysiders gifted the old enemy an easy time of it, and can thank both fortune and his magnificent goalkeeper for the fact this tie is not entirely dead yet.

United never gained any kind of a foothold, with the decision to have Guillermo Varela man-mark Philippe Coutinho leaving Marcus Rashford to spend much of the night chasing shadows as a quasi-right back. That left Anthony Martial exposed in attack, while he got no support from a central midfield which boasted nobody willing and able to put their foot on the ball. Morgan Schneiderlin is a great player when complemented by somebody like Victor Wanyama who will put himself about. Next to Marouane Fellaini he looks lost.