Had I been a Liverpool player coming off the pitch at Anfield while all around me Manchester United celebrated a game they ought to have lost, I would not have been too despondent.
Yes, the disappointment would be massive but deep down there would also be a feeling that if Liverpool play that well against Barcelona tomorrow night, they will go through. I have no doubts about that whatsoever.
The one point you can make about their defeat by Manchester United is that if Liverpool possessed a 20-goal-a-season striker, they would probably have won that game easily. That is one of the issues that Rafael Benitez and the club's new owners have to address in the summer. In terms of buying players the Liverpool manager has to stop shopping at Woolworth's and start looking around Harvey Nichols.
From their first triumph in Rome in 1977 to that amazing night in Istanbul two years ago, the European Cup has given Liverpool some extraordinary memories; but the league was always the bread and butter at Anfield and the gap between Liverpool and the leaders cannot make for comfortable reading. They are a side in need of three high-class players added.
However, when he looks at the picture beyond Saturday's game, Benitez will be reasonably happy. This season the emotions around Anfield have swung wildly from doom and gloom to euphoria and then back again, but despite Saturday's setback Liverpool are on an upward curve. Their displays have been good, and often better than good, for many weeks now while at centre-back Jamie Carragher is putting in one quality performance after another.
The one proviso I would add is that I cannot see Barcelona being as bad at Anfield as they were at the Nou Camp. After Liverpool conceded an early goal, everything about Benitez's game plan was spot on; aided by a Barcelona defence who were all over the place and a goalkeeper who made errors that were simply jaw-dropping.
The atmosphere at Old Trafford on Wednesday is likely to be tense, not because of the match situation - Manchester United should progress easily enough against Lille - but because of the extraordinary circumstances of the first leg. Usually in football, as in life, there are two sides to every story but here there is only one. The French attempt to simply walk off the pitch was beyond belief. The only circumstances in which you would ever leave the field of play is if the pitch was invaded. Lille were angry that they had conceded to a quickly-taken free-kick, which was the result of timing and opportunism from Ryan Giggs. United were not to blame for what happened and if Lille wanted someone to criticise they should take a look at themselves.
Of all the English clubs, Arsenal are under the most obvious threat. If you had said eight days ago that their season could be over on Wednesday night, it would have seemed incredible.
Their brand of football, technically, is superior to anything else in England, their youth system gives them strength in depth but they are still 20 points behind Manchester United and for all the great touches they displayed against Chelsea and Blackburn in the cups, they lost both matches.
They have two big questions to answer. How many of that young side that played in the Carling Cup final will have made it in four years' time? And is next season going to be any different to this one? They have the players to beat PSV Eindhoven but too often at the Emirates Stadium Arsenal have faltered against teams they should have brushed aside.
The first game they played there, against Aston Villa, set the pattern. They dominated, they conceded against the run of the game and had to fight hard for a late equaliser. It is a pattern they have to break on Wednesday night, otherwise their season will have collapsed inside a fortnight.
United's winner at Anfield would have hit Chelsea hard but whether the Premiership is now beyond them or not, they are a club who are not going to go away. But the formula for Jose Mourinho is a simple one. If Chelsea win the Premiership or the Champions League to go with the Carling Cup, it's been a good season. If they don't end up with either the Premiership or the Champions League it's been a bad one. It's as straightforward as that.