Liverpool receives the final PGMOL VAR verdict after Van Dijk disallowed the goal against Man City

Liverpool fell behind earlier in the half after Erling Haaland opened the scoring. His header followed a missed penalty, which was saved by Giorgi Mamardashvili.

Van Dijk thought he had restored parity before halftime with a powerful header from a corner. But the celebrations were short-lived when VAR determined that Andy Robertson, who was “offside”, “disturbed the game”.

City took advantage of the momentum. Goals from Nico Gonzalez and Jeremy Doku either side of the break secured a 3-0 win for Pep Guardiola’s men in another setback for Liverpool’s title defence.

The call not to allow Van Dijk’s efforts has sparked debate among analysts. Now PGMOL chief Howard Webb has given his opinion.

Speaking on TNT’s referee Mic’d Up, Webb explained to former Liverpool striker Michael Owen: “Certainly Michael, a huge decision in an important game.

“As the ball moves towards Robertson – three yards from goal in the center of the six-yard box – he makes that obvious move to dive under the ball. The ball goes just over his head and finds the target in the half of the six-yard box where he is.

“The referees have to make a judgement: did that clear action affect the goalkeeper and his ability to save the ball? That’s where the subjectivity comes in.”

They looked at that action so close to the goalkeeper and formed that opinion.

“I know this isn’t everyone’s opinion, but it’s not unreasonable to understand why [the officials] would draw that conclusion when the player is so close to the goalkeeper, the ball is coming straight at him and he has to duck to get out of the way.

“They come to the conclusion that it affects Donnarumma’s ability to dive for the ball and save.

“Once they’ve made that decision on the pitch, it’s the VAR’s job to look at that and decide whether the outcome was clearly and obviously wrong.

“Only Donnarumma really knows if he was affected by this and we need to look at the actual evidence.”

After the match, Liverpool boss Arne Slot gave his assessment of the situation in an interview with Sky Sports. “I think it’s clear and obvious that the wrong decision was made, at least in my opinion,” he said.

“Because he [Robertson] did not interfere at all with what the goalkeeper could do. That could have affected the game in a positive way for us, because we were so poor in the first half.”