The Premiership shows it is still the beautiful game

But the romantic in me says that this is the exception not the rule and that most in the professional game really do want to have a showcase for their sublime skills.

Surely the Rooneys and the Ronaldinhos and the rest mostly want to be famed for their talents not their tempers - for their techniques and not their tetchiness?

And so it was on Sunday when a truly uplifting game was played at Anfield between Liverpool and Arsenal.

Packing in the fans

The fans that I watched this wonderful game with were not on the Kop (or what is left of it) but in the Harvesters at the Crowne Plaza on Dubai's notorious Sheikh Zayed Road. Even those present who were not originally there just for the footy soon focused on the giant screen as it became clear that a classic was underway.

I wonder what random set of circumstances made this such a fine match when often much heralded battles in the Premiership turn out to be damp squibs? Perhaps I should seek the advice of that master of spin and committed football fan Alastair Campbell who entertained many of us earlier in the day with a master class on the management of the media.

He would have been enthralled as the rest of us - not just because the talents were of rather a higher class than his beloved Burnley, but because it was a demonstration of true excellence.

Mastering the demons

In any walk of life success only really comes to those who can master their demons. Earlier in the day a talented set of Tottenham players choked at home to Blackburn, demonstrating for all to see how much work their expensive new manager Juande Ramos has to do to resurrect Spurs after a dreadful season so far.

As some of us predicted at the start of the season, Martin Jol had managed to turn an costly Tottenham squad not just into also rans but into potential candidates for relegation. He has lost his job and the only question is why it took so long for him to be shown the door.

As every painful match unfolded it seemed that the demons were in the very souls of the men from White Hart Lane - and when that happens it's an exorcist rather than a coach that is required. I hope that the man from Spain can call on his nation's experience of fighting demonic possession and turn Spurs season around.

The turn of the Angels

Whilst the home fans walked sadly away from Tottenham those of their North London neighbours would have been thrilled by their team's demonstration of skills at Anfield. Although Liverpool took the lead from a marvellous Steven Gerrard goal in the seventh minute it never seemed that this would be anything but a thriller.

The organised Liverpool defence kept the Gunners at bay and at the other end Liverpool came close to extending their lead. But the roof in the Harvesters had to wait until the eightieth minute finally to be raised when Fabregas toe-poked an equaliser home.

This was a match in which it seemed that not only had any demons been banished from the ground before the start but that it was footballing angels who took their places. Angelic skills I mean not behaviour - although the six bookings suggest that it was a dirtier match that in fact it was.

Bold and Beautiful

When you see a match like Liverpool v Arsenal (stumble across it in my case) it restores your faith in the idea that football is, as Pele called it, the 'beautiful game'. Like all attractive things, football at its best looks deceptively simple. 'A simple game played on grass,' Brian Clough called it and he would be the first to pour scorn on those who seek to complicate it and even more on those who despoil it.

True the players on the Anfield pitch were all multi-millionaires - but this notwithstanding they somehow conjured up a match which will live in the memory. 'El juego de los ángeles' Liverpool's Rafael Benitez might have called it - Spurs fans will hope that his countryman Juande Ramos has a similar cause for Castilian hyperbole before the season is out.