Virgil van Dijk looked to have levelled the scores before half-time with a brilliant header against Man City, only to be harshly ruled out for Andy Robertson‘s offside.
Van Dijk headed in from a Mohamed Salah delivery to cancel out Erling Haaland’s own headed opener – but soon after saw his goal ruled out as the linesman waved his flag.
The decision was checked and cleared by VAR Michael Oliver, with the Premier League‘s match centre providing an official explanation soon after.
Their statement reads: “The referee’s call of offside and no goal to Liverpool was checked and confirmed by VAR – with Robertson in an offside position and deemed to be making an obvious action directly in front of the goalkeeper.”
Robertson was stood near Man City goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma but was clearly not blocking the Italian’s view of a header he had no chance of saving regardless.
The Scot ducked out of any line of vision the officials claimed would be blocked, and in fact it was Man City winger Jeremy Doku who was closer to being considered in the way.
It meant Liverpool were denied a timely equaliser not long before half-time, which would clearly have been a confidence-booster heading into the second half.
Man City were earlier given a penalty after Giorgi Mamardashvili grazed Doku’s trailing leg with his knee, only for the Georgian to deny Haaland from the spot.
There was little Mamardashvili could do for Haaland’s looping header for 1-0, however.
As part of Sky Sports’ live coverage of the game, commentator and former Man United defender Gary Neville said: “Donnarumma had a clear sight of it, he was never going to get there. Liverpool are right to be fuming.”
Man City then went into half-time 2-0 up as midfielder Nico Gonzalez’s long-range effort deflected in off Van Dijk’s attempted block.