For Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez, it was a numbing defeat as he prepares for his most important match since arriving last summer, Wednesday's Champions League quarter-final second leg against Juventus in Turin. He knows that his team will need to find much more fire and invention if European qualification through the Premiership is not to become the only target left after that historic night, with its grisly ghosts of Heysel, but happy reminders of their old glory days.
Strictly speaking, with a 2-1 lead, they need only to produce one of those backs-to-the-wall performances of their European heyday to grind out a goalless draw and silence the crowd, as Bill Shankly loved to say. Both teams managed that effortlessly here for most of the game, even if City roused themselves to a stirring finish.
How Benitez would love to go to Italy with Fernando Morientes, who returned here, if only for his ability to play with his back to goal and control the play. Sadly for them, Morientes, the striker with by far the best Champions League pedigree at the club, is cup-tied for the visit to the Stadio Delle Alpi so Liverpool can only hope that he can contribute the Premiership goals to make sure they get back in.
Liverpool's cautious start to this game may have been due to their exertions in midweek or a fear that City would be running on pure adrenalin for manager Stuart Pearce's first home game in charge, though no one seems to know whether he is caretaker boss who will be judged on this season's remaining results or whether he already has the permanent keys to the manager's office, as well as the broom cupboard.
Pearce, who was given a standing ovation before kick-off, instructed his staff to scatter plenty of spare balls around the pitch perimeter so as to ensure that his team maintained a high tempo. Setting an example, he acted as a ballboy on a couple of occasions and for good measure, even managed to give an offside decision after completing one retrieval mission.
Despite going through his more menacing Psycho routines in the laughingly named technical area, his team looked incapable of developing so much as a high temperature. Only the subtle promptings of Frenchman Antoine Sibierski threatened to lift the threat of the crowd's hypothermia and it took the interception of Stephen Warnock to prevent him scoring on the stroke of half-time, which did not come a moment too soon.
After the energy they expended at Anfield on Tuesday, Liverpool's players looked a bit leggy, another favourite expression of footballing people. But when John Arne Riise, who has a left foot England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson would die for, swerved in a cross, Anthony Le Tallec only had to stoop to conquer with a header.
Instead, he shanked the ball so far over that it was beyond even Pearce to sprint round the goal to collect it.
Despite Liverpool's high ambitions for the rest of the season and City's desire to give their new manager a winning start to his first home game, both teams gave the sort of display that would normally have seen the match filed as a meaningless end-of-season affair.
Steven Gerrard tried to lift Liverpool's tempo at the start of the second half with one of those coltish, charging runs reminiscent of the late Crazy Horse, Emlyn Hughes, but his shot proved more of a hand-warmer for away fans behind the goal than for David James.
City fans tried to lift their side with a chorus of Blue Moon but they might as well have been baying at it until Musampa shot against a post and Joey Barton just failed to get a shot on target. Robbie Fowler, playing against the club where he was once a God, also came close to setting up a late goal, which would have allowed his 30th birthday celebrations to go with a swing.
Then, with the clock almost stopped, City substitute Lee Croft, back from a loan spell at Oldham, produced a cross from the right for Musampa's drilled winner.
Strangely, as the ball hit the back of the net, Pearce seemed in no hurry to get another ball on the pitch.
The visitors could have moved into fourth place by drawing here and that seemed to be the limit of their ambition. Not for the first time this season, the question in the air was whether the Premiership deserves four Champions League places. After allowing the shot-shy Musampa three clear chances, the last of which he finally accepted, Liverpool did not deserve anything from this game.
'We need to learn,' Rafael Benítez said. 'If you cannot win it is important to draw. We lost the ball from our own throw-in in the final minute and they scored a counter-attack goal. We wanted to put Everton under pressure but now we have to wait.'
There was plenty riding on the outcome, with Pearce needing to make his case for a permanent job (he denies anything has been settled) and Liverpool poised to overtake Everton. Unfortunately you would never have guessed. Psycho still has a way to go if he wishes to recast lethargic City in his own energetic image, while Liverpool looked to be taking a breather between meetings with Juven tus. The policy does not appear to have harmed their chances in Europe this season, though more injuries would surely turn Wednesday's Italian job into mission impossible and Liverpool's support held its breath when Luis García needed treatment after being caught on the calf.
There were few other distractions in a first half as drab as the Manchester weather. Robbie Fowler celebrated his 30th birthday by looking his age, not by plundering a hat-trick against his former club as over-enthusiastic City fans had predicted. How City fans can even dream of hat-tricks is a mystery when they follow a team of such reluctant finishers. Antoine Sibierski had a decent chance as early as the fourth minute, but chose to go to ground in search of a free-kick rather than take on the less-than-rapid Mauricio Pellegrino. Musampa had the next opportunity, with a far-post volley after good work by Joey Barton, only to make the sort of contact that would embarrass a schoolboy.
Liverpool were no better with Anthony Le Tallec wasting their best chance of the half from John Arne Riise's cross, although Igor Biscan forced a save from David James with a shot from the edge of the area. They began the second half more purposefully, with Steven Gerrard getting forward in support of Riise's run down the left and volleying over, though nothing the visitors did succeeded in bringing Fernando Morientes into the game.
Gradually City seemed to realise they had a chance and stopped playing like doormats. In the 65th minute Fowler helped Nedum Onuoha release Reyna down the right and from his deep cross Musampa positioned himself for another far-post volley. The crowd braced itself for another laugh or groan, depending on affiliation, but this time the midfielder smacked the ball hard and true and was only denied by Carson's right-hand upright.
A faltering chorus of Blue Moon broke out as if City fans realised a goal would not be forthcoming and knew they had witnessed the high point of the afternoon. They were wrong. And we may all have been wrong about Musampa too. The winning goal came seconds from the end of normal time after City had survived a Gerrard run and shot that looked like ending the contest. It came via a left-foot volley from their loan signing from Atlético Madrid. Substitute Lee Croft escaped down the right, Musampa swung at the cross and struck third time lucky through a crowded area.
There was only time for a full-throated Blue Moon before the whistle and a hurried announcement that Musampa was man of the match. That seemed a bit strong, but the judges were not exactly spoilt for choice.