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Let's not get too carried away: Liverpool has won just one game. Clearly, though, this was a big step in the right direction for Arne Slot's side, at the perfect time for the under-fire Dutchman.
The last few days have been tricky. Mohamed Salah's explosive comments at the weekend looked to have undermined the Liverpool head coach, but the rest of his players responded in the best way possible at the San Siro, putting in their most complete performance for some time.
There is still work to be done —Alexander Isak, for instance, was largely anonymous again — but Liverpool played as a unit. Running hard and ensuring proper physical exertion is a basic requirement, but it hasn't always been met lately.
Dominik Szoboszlai scored the winning goal from the penalty spot, but Ryan Gravenberch played well. Alongside them, Curtis Jones was very good, and Alexis Mac Allister was sharper than he has been for some time.
Ibrahima Konate not only got through the game without making a calamitous error, but he looked strong, confident and composed. Next to him, Joe Gomez, Virgil van Dijk and Andy Robertson were solid.
In the context of the season, this was a big win for Slot. More immediately, though, with questions coming thick and fast about the absent Salah, it would have been easy for such a potential blow to his status to have left a dent.
Instead, Salah, watching on from home, will be wondering how he gets his place back. In this changed formation — a 4-4-2, essentially — he simply doesn't fit.
Of course, after next weekend's visit of Brighton, the Egyptian will be heading to AFCON with his country. As it stands, it is undecided whether or not he will be back in the team when the Premier League resumes.
But Liverpool had no choice but to leave him out of the Champions League squad midweek after the accusations that he leveled — and as it turned out, he wasn't missed.
Individually, the Liverpool players performed well. Collectively, they ran for each other and looked like a proper unit.
"Obviously when you lose games and concede easy goals like what we have done, the focus will be on those kinds of things," Van Dijk said. "But we try to find consistency and we know they have two strikers who are very good.
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"We needed Ryan [Gravenberch] in front of us and every put a shift in and ran so hard. It could have been a 0-0, but we take the three points and we move on."
The simple fact is, Slot would not have been able to set up like this — pragmatically, and with defensive discipline — with Salah in the team. Having won and kept a clean sheet, he surely has no choice but to keep things the same on Saturday.
Given the strength of the comments that Salah made against both Slot and the club more generally, there is a strong argument to be made that leaving him out until he heads to Morocco for a few weeks would be a wise move.
Even if Slot says on Friday that his number 11 is back available, however, it can only be for a place on the bench at best. Against Inter Milan, Liverpool found a formula for the short-term without Salah — and maybe beyond.
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