Iliman Ndiaye saw his goal for Everton against Liverpool disallowed for a marginal offside in the build up with Mohamed Salah opening the scoring just two-and-a-half minutes later in what will be his final Merseyside derby.
The Toffees' winger thought he had made more history when he turned home Jake O'Brien's cross to score the first Merseyside derby goal at Everton's new Hill Dickinson Stadium. But the semi-automated offside technology showed O'Brien was just behind Ibrahima Konate, who was Liverpool's last defender, during the VAR review when he picked up a loose clearance on the right.
A post to X from the Premier League Match Centre read: "#EVELIV – 27’ VAR OVERTURN VAR checked the referee’s call of goal – and established that O’Brien was in an offside position and recommended that the goal was disallowed."
Just minutes later, Salah was onside when he met Cody Gakpo's superb ball behind the Everton defence to put Arne Slot's side in front with his strike coming roughly 150 seconds after Ndiaye's disallowed goal.
Everton had started the better in their first game against Liverpool at the Hill Dickinson Stadium with Giorgi Mamardashvili forced into several early saves, including an excellent one to deny Beto.
There were also some big penalty shouts after a collision between Curtis Jones and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, but those appears were waved away.
Sky Sports co-commentator Chris Sutton was in agreement with the decision made by Chris Kavanagh. He said: "His run is well-timed. The ball is excellent. said it was shoulder to shoulder and that was my initial reaction too.
"Was he getting on the end of that anyway? Too easy, though, to run off the back of Szoboszlai to get in."
With the visitors struggling to get a foothold in the game, tempers flared between Dominik Szoboszlai and Ndiaye following a foul by the former.
Iliman Ndiaye and Dominik Szoboszlai were involved in a heated altercation during Everton vs Liverpool
The Hungary international was earlier robbed off possession rather forcefully by James Garner, though Jordan Pickford remained the only player to receive a yellow card after storming out of his goal following Virgil van Dijk's late foul on Idrissa Gueye.
Salah's goal, which saw him become the joint-highest scorer in Merseyside Derbies during the Premier League era, was unsurprisingly the major turning point in the game with Liverpool going on to dominate the remainder of the second half.
Both Cody Gakpo and Alexander Isak forced Pickford into saves while a thumping Szoboszlai effort was blocked by James Tarkowski.
Everton grabbed an equaliser early into the second half with Beto sliding home a Dewsbury-Hall cross in an incident which saw Mamardashvili injured and stretchered off with Freddie Woodman coming on for his Premier League debut.
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