Forget the letter of the law, let’s brainstorm our way to a better game

Where is your arm right now? Would you say it’s in a natural position? Isn’t it always in a natural position? Is your natural position that same as my natural position?

And if you’ve just wrestled with Davinson Sánchez for a few seconds before he volleys the ball from point blank range vaguely near you, where naturally would you put your arm? This is a question for Ashley Barnes’s subconscious – or it’s a question that Ashley Barnes’s subconscious got wrong last Sunday. It chose … poorly. It was not the holy grail of natural positions – unless of course you think he intentionally put his arm in that spot. It is his brain I suppose.

Now, by the letter of the law – or in other words, just the law – the Burnley striker conceded a penalty that could have a decisive effect at the bottom of the Premier League for them and for Spurs’ Champions League push at the top, ignoring of course the fact that it all evens itself over the course of a season.

But did Barnes make himself unnaturally bigger? Or just naturally bigger? Or naturally the same size but in a slightly different shape? Is Ashley Barnes’s surface area a constant or is it constantly changing - and how unnatural can it be?

The actual law states: “A player is considered to have made their body unnaturally bigger when the position of their hand/arm is not a consequence of, or justifiable by, the player’s body movement for that specific situation.”

The interpretation seems to be judged not by people who’ve never played the game, but by people who have never moved about at all. Try wrestling a large Colombian man for a bit and see where your hands go.

We have got to a stage where barely any players, no one in the stadium, at home – not even the most partisan Spurs fan –