Defender penalised for handball against NewcastleDier: ‘You don’t feel free to act, to play in a normal way’Keep your hands behind your back when you block. Do not raise them when you jump, even if, really, you need that for leverage. Get close to your man, you have always been taught that, but not too close because then you are open to all sorts. Although, if you are super close, maybe you will get away with it. Welcome to defending in the
Premier League 2020 and the above guide is merely to help you stay on the right side of the new handball rule, although that, too, is evolving. Defenders are not penguins but perhaps it would be better if they were.
Eric Dier sighs. When is your arm not your arm? When is its position natural or otherwise? And what is natural for one person and not the next? “In and around the box with the new handball rule, you are terrified,” the
Tottenham and
England defender says. “You don’t feel free. You really don’t feel free to act, to try to play in a normal way.”