Why, why why are referees suckered into this un-natural / natural position rubbish. Football is a simple game confused by recent lawmakers and extra guidances.
Question one for any referee, Did player IYO handle a ball deliberately??? Question Two, Did his hand do something to go towards a ball (on purpose), You are then asked to consider speed, closeness etc etc. With all those factors considered, are you still sure a player handled a ball deliberately?? Could he have done something to prevent it?
Now, when modern players became organised trained 'cheats', huge money was involved, they started to get clever, they were looking for every perceivable angle to turn a game the way, and playing on our good nature and sensing a weakness in what we saw as deliberate handball they had learned to hang their hands out like shovels, (making themselves bigger etc etc). So, the lawmakers then added guidance to try and catch out the most blatant cheats. Quite rightly IMO. But, the cases of the swinging arms are surely different, we all swing them in different ways, for balance, for lift, its part of natural human movement. He has to be super skilled to swing his arms into the exact position to block a ball deliberately on purpose at speed! Yes at the lower speeds and further away there are better cases for a penalty I totally agree!
Both of these recent situations, in my opinion fall into this grey area of, you've seen a players hand / arm get hit, players are bitching for a prompt decision, (a decision that could be worth millions of pounds). So you have to consider, Has he REALLY handled a ball on purpose or tried to cheat and handle a ball deliberately?? Tough call but thats why we are there!!!
IMO, in both cases I don't think either player was trying to cheat, or they have deliberately handled the ball. Its just speed and direction call which I think should have been turned down!
Its a mess because no-one has ever told me eloquently what a natural or un-natural position actually is???
The quicker they can sort this out the better!!