When Nottingham Forest were held to a draw at home by Bournemouth and Liverpool secured a hard-fought win at Ipswich on the opening Saturday of the Premier League season, who'd have thought we'd be in for such a treat four months later.
For much of the night at a packed, boisterous City Ground it looked as though Forest, relegation candidates before a ball was kicked, were about to move within three points of the campaign's standout team, and announce themselves as genuine title contenders.
But such a night perhaps deserved its moment of drama, with the 66th-minute introduction of Kostas Tsimikas and Diogo Jota seeing the former deliver a corner 22 seconds after entering the pitch, and the latter head it home.
Liverpool were then only denied victory by heroic defending, but Forest's dejected reaction to the full-time whistle spoke to an opportunity missed, rather than a point gained.
Evidence of Nuno Espirito Santo's players' growing ambition; whatever they may say publicly.
“You know what I think about the table, for now it is not important, it is how we prepare for Southampton," said the Portuguese coach after the 1-1 draw.
“We are competing very well. This is the mentality of the squad, it’s about playing, competing and improving. We have to give credit to our players when we face such talented opponents and we raise the bar and challenge ourselves. It’s huge for us.
“I think it was a lesson for all of us. This is how we want to compete at the limit of our efforts and we saw that. We're very, very proud of the work of the players.”
Nobody appears to be adapting to what they're doing either.
Very much to script, Forest absorbed early pressure, then broke away through the pace of Anthony Elanga who played in Chris Wood to score his 13th league goal of the season just eight minutes into the match.
Content to sit deep and pick their next moment to counter, they frustrated the division's leading scorers to great effect, with numerous petulant challenges and poor final-third decisions either side of half-time proof of how rattled they'd become.
Only a combination of Slot's brave substitution - replacing a centre-back with a striker - superb delivery and lax defending at a set-piece turned the match.
From then on the flow of the game shifted, with goalkeeper Matz Sels and centre-backs Murillo and Nikola Milenkovic in particular forced to defend manfully, but prior Forest really did have a Liverpool team that has looked so serene for so long looking panicked.
They're far from the first team to be flustered by Forest. It's part of the game.
Comfortable in allowing the opposition to have the ball - on this occasion Liverpool had 70% possession - Nuno's side are such an outlier that their opponents appear dumfounded, without a coherent strategy to counteract such an unusual, perfectly executed approach for a one-off match.
Only Forest have found a way to beat the best team in the league.
Only Liverpool have had a second chance to face them, and adapt. If they couldn't, what chance has everyone else got?
“I don’t think they’re [in second] because of luck," said Slot.
“It’s so hard for everyone to play against, they have already had some difficult away games and it shows you they are a team that can compete with the top end of the league table.
“I see no reason for them to drop a lot of points."
Nuno might not want to talk about the table, but everyone else is.
Forest are going nowhere.
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