Premier League 2019/20: 8 Big Takeaways From Gameweek Two

When City’s last minute winner was disallowed, there was a lot of confusion both on and off the pitch as to why. Though VAR picked up the incident, this goal would not have been disallowed last season, even if the referee had had the option to review it.

The rule basically states that if the ball strikes a player's arm and leads to a goal scoring opportunity, play will be stopped whether there was any intent or not. So although Laporte could do nothing about the ball hitting his arm, it guided the ball to Jesus and thus created the opportunity.

What does seem unfair is that if the ball had hit the defender’s arm unintentionally and taken the ball away from Jesus, this wouldn’t have been judged a handball, since there was no goal scoring opportunity created by it.

Spurs can count themselves incredibly lucky to take a point away from the Etihad, as even the players on the pitch did not protest the initial decision to give the goal. As far as they were concerned it was a perfectly legal goal. This new law is bound to play a big role throughout the entire Premier League season, and paired with the introduction of VAR, there will be nowhere to hide for the offenders.