Now, now, Teddy - what a silly question! You know full well it would have been a penalty.

I think the rule now is that a goal is automatically ruled out if the ball hits the scorer's hand whether or not it was intentional (e.g. Edouard recently). In the case of the Rico Lewis goal, it's clear that the handball was accidental and so the goal stood.

I was more miffed at the Grealish goal being called onside by VAR. Some dodgy line-drawing IMO.

Edited by doombear (18 Dec 2023 3.46pm)

Nope. This is the rule: Immediately after touching the ball with the arm, even accidentally, the player scores a goal or creates a goal-scoring opportunity.

Their second should NOT have stood on that basis.

Well we all understood it 20 years ago and we all knew when as you say intentional hand or arm to ball took place .

Yes, intent is the key. Being cynical players who can pass a ball 30 yards accurately shouldn't have much difficulty in chipping it a short distance onto someone's arm.

The legendary Liverpool manager , Bill Shankly once said , “ Football is a simple game”, he must turn in his grave. Because the entertainment brigade have decided that could never be interesting enough.
For years hand ball was a simple problem for a ref as long as he actually saw it, it wasn’t always the case he did see it, that’s not the point though as that is the factor for VAT to deal with.
The rule was simple, deliberate hand to ball or arm as the case may be. And quiet honestly it rarely was that hard to see with the naked eye.
Players were coached to spread themselves before trying to block, as long as those arms didn’t make a deliberate move toward the ball, it wasn’t hand to ball it was ball to hand. If the hand or more often the arm was hit. That shouldn’t be hard, but in the present climate it would never be enough fun for Sky and its customers.
I should have made it clear you could never jump in front of a clearance with arms raised above the head, or even held wide . But in defensive situations the arms away from the body was not un-natural and as long as the hand didn’t go to the ball, and naturally not above head ,, in corners and crosses with players trying to gain height this was subjective..personally I don’t think they have improved anything,
Edited by Putitout (18 Dec 2023 6.24pm)

Edited by Putitout (18 Dec 2023 7.00pm)