The devil works hard but Leeds work harder.

Even in a weekend of football that pitted Jose Mourinho's Tottenham against Man United, all eyes were on Pep Guardiola's Man City going up against Marcelo Bielsa's murderball Leeds United. It promised to be quite a show, the master pitted against his apprentice. It delivered on that promise and how!

Right from the word go, Leeds pressed Man City with all the tenacity of a pit bull, affording the hosts little breathing room at the Etihad. Then Patrick Bamford teed up Stuart Dallas on 42 minutes and the Northern Ireland utility man rifled a clean shot past Ederson that bounced off the post and into the goal. It was 1-0 Leeds and even with Liam Cooper sent off before the half-time whistle, Leeds gave themselves some breathing room.

That breathing room came in handy as Man City huffed and puffed at the Leeds defence, prompting and probing for an equaliser. City threw the kitchen sink at Leeds with 29 shots, the most by a losing team in a PL game since Arsenal in December 2017 (33, vs. Man Utd). Every single outfield player was directly involved in at least one shot (Squawka data).

Since the visitors are not quite known for their defensive steel, it seemed inevitable that City would find a goal. Bielsa admitted as much in his post-match press conference. The Argentine tactician claimed that Leeds had "never" practised scenarios where they would be defending with their backs against the wall.

Man City finally equalised through a clinical strike from Ferran Torres but Leeds' second goal exemplified their approach to their first season back in the top flight.

In stoppage time, the impressive Illan Meslier released the ball Ezgjan Alioski's way. With Meslier's quick release and after a quick one-two with Helder Costa, Alioski played a delicious ball with the outside of his foot that landed just right for Dallas.

Dallas obliged and slotted it past Ederson as Leeds put on an uncharacteristically resilient show to pick up three points at the Etihad. This is what the spectacle of the Premier League is all about, isn't it?

An ever-demanding, never-forgiving league where anything can happen. Where one team can have 29 shots on goal and score just once, and the other can have just two and score with both. The thrill of the fight. It's what keeps driving stratospheric revenue to the league every season. Are you not entertained?

And then there are games like Liverpool vs Aston Villa that bring the sort of derision that unites the warring tribes in the sport.

Not quite back at the acme of their trademark attacking blitz style yet, Liverpool were nonetheless out for revenge against Aston Villa. Picking up the pieces of their defeat to Real Madrid during the week, Liverpool restored Roberto Firmino to the lineup in place of the woefully out of form Sadio Mane.

Klopp's men looked menacing right from the start as they launched attack after attack but couldn't convert. When Ollie Watkins opened the scoring on 43 minutes, Liverpool were haunted by their past mistakes. It threatened to be the same story once again. Loads of possession but chances that went begging.

But this time, Diogo Jota had other ideas. Just before the half-time whistle, Jota collected a delivery from Trent Alexander-Arnold and the sequence ended with Firmino slotting the ball in for the equaliser.

And out came the fine lines.

VAR intervened and through some concoction of intersecting lines, determined that Jota was offside in the build-up. Jurgen Klopp stood in animated disbelief. The goal that never was. Not this, not again.

The sight of Firmino waiting at the halfway line for a decision said it all. That rush of finally scoring at Anfield from open play? Gone. The joy of slotting in an equaliser before half-time? Drained. Not this, not again.

Around this irritating grain of sand Liverpool formed the pearl of their renaissance. Goals from Mo Salah and a belter of a strike from Trent Alexander-Arnold (with Gareth Southgate in attendance, no less!) meant that Liverpool have now won three consecutive league games for the first time since the start of the season.

What happened to the spectacle of the Premier League in this case? Liverpool learned their lesson the hard way this past weekend but these decisions have dogged them all season. Go back another year and the numbers are astonishing. Since the start of the 2019/20 season, Liverpool have had 10 goals disallowed in the league by VAR, four more than Villa, Man City, Spurs and Wolves.

The narrowest of margins have left Liverpool nursing their wounds since VAR was brought in. Now, naturally, VAR was brought in for these reasons precisely. To review incidents regarding goals, penalty decisions, direct red-card incidents, and mistaken identity.

Since these are the rules in place, the referee is likely to ask VAR to check every goal for offside at the slightest hint. Like in Liverpool's case, the lines are drawn and checked, verifying everything from where the attacker's armpit was, to how his fingernail reached for the ball when it was played through.

How much of an advantage does this margin give attackers, though? And how long do we have to wait for those margins to be reworked to iron out the decision's fallacy?

And that's without getting into Son Heung-min's antics when Tottenham went up against Man United this weekend. Cavani's tidy finish was disallowed after VAR deemed that Scott McTominay had "fouled" the Spurs attacker. What's even more astonishing here is that when VAR deemed there was a foul in the build-up it wasn't serious enough for a yellow card, but it was serious enough for the goal to be ruled out.

VAR promised us an end to the unknown. Was he offside? Was it a penalty? Why wasn't that a penalty? Did he handle the ball? Oh, come on, he did! Didn't he?

Instead, there is still a lot left for interpretation with VAR. The problem, therefore, does not lie with the technology. It's about how to keep the interpretation at a minimum because that's precisely where human error can occur.

The sooner that's taken care of, the sooner we can all return to the spectacle of Premier League football. And the sooner we do that, the sooner we can answer the all-important question in the sport: Are you not entertained?

Image courtesy: Leeds, Liverpool Twitter