The People's Forum: I'm not trying to 'gotcha' you here

The 'natural position' thing I think is so subjective. I didn't think that the Tarkowski penalty at Leeds was a correct decision, ostensibly because I expect my defender to try to get a block in on a shot and the idea that he can suddenly (in milliseconds) withdraw his hand if he thinks the ball might hit it, is a nonsense.

Equally, the Michael Keane handball at the Tin Mine when he blocked the cross - if the interpretation of 'natural position' leads to a situation where full-backs/defenders are trying to defend a wingers cross with their hands deliberately placed behind their back, then I think the law (or the interpretation of it) has gone awry.

Yet your 4 'rules of thumb' above, would give a pen in both Keane and Tarkowski's cases. Like I said, not a gotcha, more a reflection (agreement with you) on how difficult it is to define something that in the moment is very subjective.

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My take on it is that natural position applies when the ball is fired at you or your supporting your body (maybe on a slide tackle or getting up from the ground) etc.

Natural position is not, swinging your arms around the torso of an opponent in order to impede the opponents movement.

Therefore, its a deliberate action to move his hand, which has then hit the ball.

For me, that gives me the following criteria:

- He deliberately moved his hand
- He clearly contacted the ball with his hand
- The ball completely deviated from its position as a result of being hit by the hand
- The defender gained a clear advantage by handling the ball

therefore, penalty.

How a professional referee on VAR decided it wasn't a penalty is beyond hilarious.

I'd also question how the assistant handled it. I haven't yet watched the full audio so this might be answered in that conversation but they would have been looking straight at it from their position, so I'd be interested to hear their input. Or did they just say nothing and let the VAR/Ref get on with it.

Ste

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I thought that Fernandes clearly didn't intend to handle it and you could easily argue that his hand was in a natural position for the movement he was making - moving towards the man trying to shield him away from goal.

But the - albeit accidental - effect of his handball significantly affected the play. The ball went out of play denying Barry/Everton the opportunity to maximise a reasonably promising position (in possession in the penalty area https://x.com/irishefc1878/status/2054353849490501780?s=46

Watching this back absolutely infuriates me. It reinforces my view that these people aren’t corrupt - they’re just entirely incompetent.