And the reason Liverpool emerged from their soaking victorious was largely due to the presence in their line-up of one man: Steven Gerrard. It has been an unhappy year, pockmarked with injury, for the Liverpool captain and talisman.
On Thursday night, in only his second start of the term, he looked as if he had never been away. He was at the heart of their endeavour, bossing possession, controlling much of the game with his urgent, insistent passing and scoring with an unequivocally struck penalty.
Clearly, whoever aimed a laser pen at the captain’s head realised who was the visitors’ chief tormentor.
He was pretty spikey in his comments to the television cameras afterwards, accusing the Manchester City manager of double standards in the manner in which he made disparaging reference to Glen Johnson’s flying tackle so soon after bad mouthing Wayne Rooney for attempting to get Vincent Kompany sent off.
Mancini, incidentally, was not happy with that observation. Nor was he happy with the greater length of time Liverpool had to prepare for this tie, compared to his own side. He was unhappy too with the fact that Kompany was banned for something he claimed was significantly less injurious than Johnson’s injury time (and injury threatening) tackle.
In fact, as the wheels showed alarming sign of loosening on his expensively assembled City limousine, he wasn’t happy about anything. Not that Gerrard was gloating. The tie was only halfway through, he pointed out.
Yet, after this Liverpool will address the second leg in elevated mood. With Gerrard running things, they look an altogether more cohesive unit.
Everywhere the skipper made his colleagues appear brighter, better, more attuned. To his left, Craig Bellamy mainlined aggression, piling into his former clubmates, constantly threatening. And that was just his facial expressions.
Behind Gerrard, Daniel Agger and Martin Skrtel, abetted latterly by Carroll, repelled everything the Premier League’s most potent attack flung in their direction. It all meant it was the Liverpool fans singing at the end.
“We’re not racist, we only hate Mancs,” they sang in ironic reference to recent events. And now they have two home cup ties in which to relish their cheerily proclaimed prejudice.