All about opinions and interpretations my friend.It the literal sense of the word, this HB was not deliberate as I'm confident the player did not intend it to happen. However, IFAB's interpretation of deliberate is only loosely based on what the player is thinking as the Law does not expect us to read minds. The term deliberate is therefore clarified with two clauses in the book (we disagree on both of these, because i think they both justify HB and you don't). I've learnt from the likes of @cwyeary et al that FIFA want these types of incidents given as HB. We've seen Champions League referees and latterly World Cup officials giving very soft HBs at every opportunity. The defender sliding in with a block being a perfect example of this. For me, an attacker desperately diving in an uncontrolled manner in an attempt to score is equivalent to the defender going to ground
James, don't get me wrong, I have a good deal of respect for your posts and even if we don't end up in agreement, I'll still be influenced by your opinion
At the end of the day it would be nice to have a set of laws that resulted in uniform decisions from refs, but we dont, and thats football.
Fwiw I am not saying you are wrong. Its just my opinion at the end of the day and how I interpret the law. I understand why you would penalise handball, amd personally I agree that it should be. But in my mind and the way I interpret the law I am struggling to find basis for it.