Newcastle United's addiction to glorious football is a gift to the game, but too often for comfort is their own handicap. So it was last night, when Stan Collymore won for Liverpool a truly fabulous encounter between two fine teams in the fragments of injury time.

When Kevin Keegan and his team reflect on this defeat, and its setback to their challenge for the FA Carling Premiership title, they will be obliged to recognise that, for the last quarter of an hour, the tide was in Liverpool's favour because McManaman, running like an antelope from the right of midfield, was repeatedly shredding the left flank of their defence.

Newcastle are winning the championship at one end of the field and relinquishing it at the other. Yet Keegan remains unrepentant. It was, he said, "a classic", and nothing would change his or the team's attitude. "It was a terrific game, and we shall go on playing the same way, because that's what we believe in. Either we go on, or I go."

A match of seven goals and at least three dozen other attempts two to one in Liverpool's favour left hardened professional observers, never mind a full house at Anfield, breathlessly open-mouthed in admiration. Roy Evans, unlike Keegan, acknowledged the spectacle, but suggested soberly that reality demanded better defending by both teams.

The Liverpool manager smilingly referred to this epic as "kamikaze", while paying tribute to his team for their recovery after twice being behind. One suspects that Evans's managerial career may bring more trophies than Keegan's. Idealism so often deserves better than it receives.

This was the most electric encounter I have seen since a cup tie two seasons ago against Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield, and Newcastle's mood now, the turbulence of their attacking and their tackling from the first whistle was a tribute to them and their manager. "I've never managed a team that played so well and got nothing," Keegan said, but Liverpool's performance in the final phase reminded him, he said, of the Liverpool of 20 years ago. "Watch out," was in effect his message.

Newcastle thus remain three points behind Manchester United, now with one game in hand. Liverpool are five points behind the leaders from the same number of games. Alex Ferguson, of Manchester United, will probably be the happiest of the three managers for the moment, but all football should be celebrating this morning a match of such exceptional action and entertainment.

Liverpool all but floundered in the middle of the first half because Asprilla, Ferdinand and Ginola mesmerised them with their scintillating footwork, to the point where Liverpool's rearguard of Wright, Scales and Ruddock shuddered like the beams of a house caught in an earthquake. At the same time, the ageing Barnes was being swamped in midfield, McManaman had yet to find his touch, and in the eagerly awaited duel between McAteer and Ginola, McAteer, initially, was embarrassingly overrun. His contribution would come later, as would McManaman's.

There could not have been a more volcanic opening, Liverpool taking the lead inside two minutes with a move that ran from one end of the pitch to the other. Wright, who had an unhappy time before injury forced his replacement by Harkness at half-time, put Fowler away down the right with a 40-yard pass. Fowler cut inside, was thinking about what to do next, but had the decision removed by Redknapp's high cross to the left flank. Jones deflected the ball first time down the line to Collymore, who went round Howey on the outside. From close to the byline, Collymore's cross dropped at the far post, where Fowler, unmarked, headed sharply down beyond Srnicek.

Liverpool were on cloud nine, barely able to credit that it could be so easy. It could not. Newcastle's onslaught was about to explode, the first sign coming when Ferdinand twisted his way clear of three men and let fly straight at James.

With 11 minutes gone, Newcastle were level. Asprilla, as elusive as an eel yet oddly managing to look like, at times, a schoolboy wearing his father's pyjamas, tormented Ruddock on the right, playing the ball between his legs, then pulling it back from near the line into the path of Ferdinand seven yards out. With one controlling touch, Ferdinand hooked a shot upwards, the ball flashing between James's hands. A potential international goalkeeper should have done better.

Now Newcastle were in flood. Asprilla and Ferdinand were making their rivals look relegation candidates for a while, and four minutes later they went ahead. Ferdinand sent a raking pass, made on the turn in the centre circle, into the path of Ginola, going flat out ahead of McAteer. Drawing James, Ginola swept the ball home.

A lesser team than Liverpool might have crumpled, but not they. McManaman began to sing, Fowler twice went close, and there was clearly all to play for, though Barnes, having put Ginola clear with a faulty pass, was fortunate not to concede a penalty when sending him headlong from behind as he attempted to retrieve the error.

Only a superb save by James prevented Lee, on a solo run, putting Newcastle two up early in the second half, but by now Liverpool were in the groove. Fowler levelled the scores with a low shot from 14 yards, taken as coolly as Greaves of old, when McManaman put the ball to his feet from square on the right.

Newcastle, true to style, were ahead again inside two minutes as Lee sent Asprilla clear for the Colombian to clip the ball wide of James.

Liverpool's response was not long arriving: McManaman to McAteer down the right, a curling low cross, a stab from Collymore, with Newcastle again in disarray. Scenting victory, Liverpool's pressure mounted. When Ferdinand threatened another goal, James was his equal, and with Rush having come on in the 86th minute for Jones, he and Barnes set up the opening for Collymore to crash home the winner. It was an ecstatic or cruel moment, depending on how one looked at it.

LIVERPOOL (3-5-2): D James M Wright (sub: S Harkness, 46min), J Scales, N Ruddock J McAteer, J Redknapp, J Barnes, S McManaman, R Jones (sub: I Rush, 86) R Fowler, S Collymore.

NEWCASTLE UNITED (4-4-2): P Srnicek S Watson, S Howey (sub: D Peacock, 82), P Albert, J Beresford P Beardsley, R Lee, D Batty, D Ginola L Ferdinand, F Asprilla.

Referee: M Reed.