Even with a depleted side, however, he could not have expected to see surrender without a whimper. No matter what the formation, no matter the number of players performing in unfamiliar positions, one thing you never expect to see is Chelsea out-fought and out-muscled, as they were here. Nor was there any hint of the stirring recent fightbacks at Everton and Wigan Athletic.
Mourinho, having lost his last first-team centre-half when Ricardo Carvalho woke up with a runny nose, might have foreseen the outcome when stand-ins Paulo Ferreira and Michael Essien came up against Peter Crouch and Dirk Kuyt. Yet although he claims that his team never gave up the fight, this was as poor a display as they have given under his management, adding more fuel to the claims of a club tearing itself apart from the inside.
Even with such a depleted squad, there was no place for £30 million striker Andrei Shevchenko and one wonders how much longer Michael Ballack can stay one of Mourinho's "untouchables".
This was the sort of occasion when a man with Ballack's reputation as a world-class player ought to have imposed those powers on the game and taken responsibility for stoking the fires in the midfield engine room.
Instead, this was a typical Ballack performance for the reigning champions, drifting in and out of the game and occasionally threatening to break into a sprint, a threat that was never fulfilled. Poor old Frank Lampard, who struggles to form a midfield partnership with Steven Gerrard for England. Now he has another man trying to steal his lines at club level.
For Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez, however – sharing a 100th Premiership game celebration with Mourinho – this was his first victory over a fellow top four club this season after five successive defeats, including those two maulings here at the hands of Arsenal. Even more satisfying, it was his first Premiership win over Mourinho after losing all the previous five games.
He said: "My players, the crowd and everybody did a fantastic job. We played really well and created lots of chances and my players deserve credit for this victory."
Despite those Arsenal defeats inferring that fortress Anfield is now an open house, his team have not lost here in the Premiership since that 4-1 Chelsea win in October 2005.
This time, Chelsea were thinking only of survival, Mourinho saying: "I am not a magician and, with the team I had, I was feeling and wishing that we could get through the first 20 minutes without conceding so that it would boost the players' confidence, self-belief and stability. In Europe, whether you agree with me or not, you can play without central defenders, but in the Premiership it is impossible."
Mourinho's apprehension transmitted itself to his central defenders, who were at fault for both goals. When Crouch flicked on Steve Finnan's long punt, Ferreira was too slow to read Kuyt's head down, turn and shot.
And Essien's poor header away from a Gerrard cross made a gift of the ball to Jermaine Pennant, though neither he nor anyone inside Anfield could have imagined that the latter would half volley a remarkable effort into the corner, his first goal for Liverpool.
After that, Essien grew into his role as if to the manner born. In fact, if it had not been for his defensive covering, this might have turned into a real humiliation for Chelsea, one of those defeats that can crush even the strongest of teams.
It still would have been if Crouch had not met an outstanding cross by Finnan with the softest of headers and had not then got his legs and body into a terrible tangle after John Arne Riise had set the crossbar throbbing with a ferocious shot from 40 yards. Riise's strike was one that even Xabier Alonso, who has twice scored from his own half during his Liverpool career, must have admired.
This victory allows Liverpool to believe that their clubbings by Arsenal were aberrations, albeit that they came within four days of one another. This was an eighth win in nine games in the league and while Mourinho is measuring the gap ahead of him, if he looks behind, he will find Liverpool five points adrift of Chelsea.
That could be significant if Chelsea cannot get the likes of Claude Makelele, John Terry and Arjen Robben, who went off injured in the first half, fit soon. And if they cannot recover the spirit that carried them to two successive titles.
The only two Chelsea players who could really hold their heads up after this were Essien and Drogba, the latter being marked mainly on effort, including acting as unofficial ball boy to prevent time wasting. As for Mourinho, he must hope his old friends from Arsenal help fulfil the second half of his prediction this afternoon.