JEFF POWELL: Liverpool’s battle with Man City was a glorious throwback.. it’s a shame VAR spoilt it

Finally, a contemporary Premier League game that is reminiscent of the way many of us still think the game should be played.

Liverpool v Manchester City was described by Gary Neville as ‘a return’ in its intensity, pace and most importantly physical challenge.

It certainly looked like it had been plucked from the sepia annals of the good old days, when men were still men and divers were even ridiculed by their own teammates as they rolled around in simulated terror.

No quarter of an hour asked. No data. Just as admirable, no decline in skill and intelligence.

Here was a cosmopolitan look at some of the blood and thunder clashes that characterized the games between the yeomen of Manchester United, Liverpool, Leeds, Arsenal, Tottenham, Everton and sometimes Chelsea and Cloughie’s Nottingham Forest in days gone by. With Celtic thrown into the mix in good British measure on some crazy European Cup nights.

A vivid memory came back when I saw Jurgen and Pep’s troops – well, almost all of them – giving it their all at Anfield.

It was on a damp, darkening winter evening in old White Hart Lane when Dave Mackay, the brave Spurs, broke his leg in a hair-raising tackle.

A Manchester City goal was disallowed due to a slight donning of Fabinho’s shirt by Haaland

The sharp crack from the impact indicated that there must be a fracture. Unbearable as it must have been, Dave ignored the trainer’s pleas to go off. He kept refusing and stamping his leg until the white of the broken bone penetrated his stocking.

If that doesn’t put Sunday’s surrender to VAR’s interpretation of a slight shirt pull as sufficient to write off City’s goal in a sad perspective, perhaps nothing will.

That decision reversal under the pressure of this misguided and so often misread blob of technology was about the only thing referee Anthony Taylor got wrong all afternoon.

It must irritate him all the more that he was forced into that Truisian U-turn after letting this gem of a match flow all afternoon by refusing to whistle for minor mistakes. Many of them identical to those that Erling Haaland swept Fabinho to the side. And by the way, Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson had no control over the ball when Haaland then shoved it out of his hands to let Phil Foden score.

Ref Anthony Taylor decided to disallow Phil Foden’s goal after VAR monitor check

Before the Kop, who played his own deafening role in a huge win, bursts into rage, let’s be very clear that Liverpool deserved to win with Mo Salah’s gem of a goal. It is a significant achievement for any team to bring a suffocating end to City’s unbeaten records this season in this season’s scintillating form.

Whether the euphoria of this triumph over the City maestros who stole the Premier title from them last season is enough to provide the afterburner for a resurrected championship challenge by Liverpool this season remains to be seen.

But whatever the outcome next spring, these two teams have given the disenchanted public a spectacular reason to fall in love with football again.

At the very least, this match was a glorious throwback. At best, could it even be a sign of a large-scale renaissance of the heroic game that once captivated the entire nation?

Here’s the hope.

Foden (L) and Haaland celebrate, but their joy was short-lived at Anfield on Sunday