Premier League referees have this week been given updated guidance on the offside rule.
It comes in the wake of Manchester City's Bernardo Silva scoring a highly controversial goal in the 2-0 win over Aston Villa last week.
Silva scored after teammate Rodri had initially run back from an offside position to dispossess Tyrone Mings of the ball.
Rodri was not adjudged to have been offside because Mings had intercepted a City pass and controlled it on his chest thereby 'deliberately playing the ball' according to the offside law.
Referee Jon Moss awarded a goal and VAR did not overturn it.
However, in a change to the rule, that goal would now be disallowed.
The new guidance states: “Where a player in an offside position immediately impacts on an opponent who has deliberately played the ball, the match officials should prioritise challenging an opponent for the ball, and thus the offside offence of ‘interfering with an opponent by impacting on the opponent’s ability to play the ball’ should be penalised.”
This rule change has come three years too late for Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool, who were not happy following a Tottenham game in 2018.
The chaotic clash at Anfield ended 2-2, but with the game at 1-1 heading towards 90 minutes, Harry Kane won a penalty for Tottenham that he would go on to miss, eventually making up for it by scoring a 95th minute spot-kick to amke it 2-2 after Mo Salah had thought he had won it with an injury-time goal of his own.
For the first penalty Kane was in an offside position as he latched on to a through ball from Dele Alli before going down under a challenge from Loris Karius inside the area.
Dejan Lovren had attempted to clear the through ball, taking a wild swing at it and connecting very slightly with the ball that made its way through to Kane.
And Klopp has been discussing that very moment in his pre-match press conference today, ahead of the game against, coincidentally, Spurs.
He said: "Aston Villa will be really happy with [the offside law tweak]. My first thought was how can we not think about this before? Lovren against Spurs, Kane scored (sic). Not the first time it's happened.
"Finally, I would say, we have changed this rule. All football people agreed it needed solving. I am really happy they have changed it."
