We’re only in November but it’s already beginning to feel like this really could be Liverpool’s year.
The Reds secured their 11th league win of the 2019/20 campaign against title rivals Manchester City on Sunday evening.
Goals from Fabinho, Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane earned Jurgen Klopp’s side a 3-1 victory and all three points. They now sit eight points above both Leicester and Chelsea - in second and third place, respectively - and nine points ahead of fourth-placed City after 12 games played.
Pep Guardiola was furious with a number of decisions made by the match officials and the Video Assistant Referee over the course of the 90 minutes.
One controversial incident involved Liverpool’s second goal, scored by Salah, who was on the verge of offside when Andy Robertson swung in his cross from the left flank.
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It took Sky Sports a surprisingly long time to pull up an image which ‘proved’ that Salah was, in fact, onside when Robertson hit the cross.
It’s still unclear what caused such a lengthy delay, which had a lot of fans debating the incident on social media.
One fan’s tweet, supposedly showing that Salah *was* offside when the ball was played, went viral.
Josh - @UtdJL - pulled up an app on his phone, rotated the angle of the image and then placed a horizontal line next to Salah which shows the Egyptian was in front of John Stones.
Some people were convinced this was accurate...
Others, well, were less convinced...
This is what football has become now: fans trying to work out what is and what isn’t offside by drawing their own lines across screenshots.
It’s happened pretty much every week in the Premier League this season since the introduction of VAR.
We have to trust that Sky Sports’ line on their screenshot is accurate. It goes without saying that the Premier League’s technology at Stockley Park is far more advanced than anything fans have at their disposal.
But as VAR continues to produce controversial decision after controversial decision, it’s no surprise that supporters are questioning whether this new technology is reliable.