Fourteen games unbeaten brought Liverpool here, to Swansea, exactly three months after their last Premier League defeat. That day, they were brutalised at Wembley by Tottenham and made to look like a very average side indeed.
No longer. With each passing week they appear to become stronger; their attacking chemistry has grown richer and more dangerous and even their defensive fragility, a fatal flaw not so long ago, seems to be a thing of the past.
Well, seemed to be a thing of the past. Liverpool travelled here in expectation of a simple win and an easy three points. Not entirely unreasonable given that Swansea are bottom of the table and desperately short of match-winners or confidience, but it was nevertheless an attitude which cost Jurgen Klopp's side in the opening half and throughout. Liverpool played at half-pace, prodding the ball around neatly enough, but without much determination to really do anything with it.
Mohamed Salah volleyed a good chance over the bar when he might have done better and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain thundered a shot into Lukasz Fabianski's chest, but there was precious little dynamism. For once, the thrilling attacking trio of Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino and top-scorer Salah looked disconnected and impotent. Eight days after upending Manchester City with such captivating style, this was a curiously dispassionate Liverpool performance.
Swansea took a half-time lead back into the dressing-room. They spent the first thirty-nine minutes edging nervously up the pitch, terrified of playing into their opponent's counter-attack. In the fortieth minute, from the second of two corners which needn't have been conceded, Alfie Mawson reacted quickest to a dropping ball and hooked a shot inside Loris Karius's post. Somehow, they led.
Swansea hadn't really asked any questions of the visiting defence or explored of any of its weaknesses, they'd just managed to mine a goal from the law of averages. Dump a ball into the box, wait for the mistake. Klopp was so angry he forgot to gurn for the cameras.
Unfortunately, a legacy of Swansea recent recruitment failings is their inability to play in more than one way. A small squad and a considerable injury list has limited Carlos Carvalhal to selecting - more or less - the players available to him. Tonight, that meant Jordan Ayew at the top of the pitch, running alone with little support. It meant the static back-three of Mawson, Mike van der Hoorn, and Federico Fernandez, and the hope against expectation that Liverpool would never find their movement and rhythm.
More than anything, it meant a lot of possession surrendered cheaply.
Not that Liverpool did much with it. The crowd spend most of the second-half shifting in their seats, bracing for an onslaught which never came. Fabianski adjusted his feet well to tip a Salah free-kick over the bar and produced a number of good, but not spectacular saves. Swansea were certainly grateful for their goalkeeper's performance, but they weren't totally indebted to it. Equally, while their trio of centre-backs all made important blocks and competed bravely under the high-ball, there wasn't - until the dying seconds at least - any real panic.
At this stage of Carvalhal's tenure, it's impossible to know whether he's had a true effect on Swansea or whether these players are just responding to a different voice. Credit to him tonight, though, for constructing a gameplan which neutered a high-powered opponent.
His midfielders roped off the central of the pitch, allowing Liverpool the touchlines and inviting them to arrow cross after cross into the box. It's not how Klopp's team like to play, but - crucially - it's exactly the way Carvalhal's side want to defend. Really, it's the only department in which they're truly competent. A tactical triumph for the Portuguese, then, and one achieved with very few pieces on the board.
For Liverpool, this came at exactly the wrong time. Tottenham dropped points yesterday and this was an opportunity to create a sizeable gap between fourth and fifth. They didn't manage it and, worse, that failure has made much of the recent hyperbole with which they've been lavished sound dreadfully premature.
