Liverpool knows Tottenham already played decisive title race role ahead of Man City showdown

The Premier League certainly has a knack for serving up a good narrative. While Liverpool could not quite go the distance to make it an enthralling three-way title fight heading into the final day, we have been served up a scenario whereby Tottenham holds bitter rival Arsenal's destiny in its hands.

With Manchester City needing to play its game in hand over Arsenal ahead of the last round of fixtures, it travels to Spurs on Tuesday requiring a win to keep hold of the title race initiative. Should Tottenham take so much as a point, the Gunners would only need to win their last match to clinch the Premier League.

High drama indeed. And it's a chance for Tottenham to come good on the 'king-maker' tag it has been handed — so far, its predicted impact on the title race has failed to come to fruition, with both Liverpool and Arsenal securing wins against Ange Postecoglou in the run-in.

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But Liverpool can hardly fail to remember that Spurs already played a pivotal role in the title race. Even as early as September, it was obvious that the Luis Díaz VAR error could have significant ramifications, in a season that was already shaping up to be tight at the top.

Though he never even called for one, Jürgen Klopp was widely mocked for suggesting a replay would be the most equitable outcome. Yet months later, here we are in a situation where the mistake against Tottenham has denied Liverpool the chance to go into the final weekend with its title hopes still intact (its third-place finish has now been mathematically confirmed).

We can't know for certain whether Liverpool would have won if the Díaz goal had been given. But it would have been in the driving seat to do so.

As a reminder, this was not your typical referee or even VAR mistake. This was not the officials coming to the wrong conclusion. It was agreed among the video staff that this was a straightforward case of an onside goal, but a catastrophic mistake in relaying that information to the on-field team meant that it was not awarded. Rigid protocol then prevented this immediately-identified error from being fixed.

There's no escaping the fact that Liverpool needed to do more in order to win the title this season. 'Klopp farewell' spirit carried it a certain length of the way, but a side that is still in a rebuilding phase ultimately lacked the quality to go the distance. But it's equally undeniable that if this egregious mistake had not happened, and the Reds had gone on to win, even this flawed team would still be in the championship picture.

It's easy to pick out other incidents that have been formally classified as errors, not least the handball not given against Martin Ødegaard. But that waters down the scale of the Díaz mistake, the likes of which has not been seen before or since. In the narrative of the season, currently being shaped by Spurs vs Man City, it would be wrong to exclude the goal that was chalked off by an administrative failure — and that in hindsight, those replay suggestions were far from outlandish.