<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
Judging by their lacklustre display against an off-key Spurs, those predictions may not be wide of the mark.<\/p>\n
Burnley offered little to the game and, despite operating well below their potential level, Spurs still ran out comfortable winners, in a worrying sign for the Premier League season to come for the Clarets.<\/p>\n
In the opening minutes of the game, Burnley also set an unfortunate record, as they became the first team to be penalised for a new infringement introduced for the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n
READ HERE: <\/strong>Report: Saga Over Dublin-Born Premier League Star’s Eligibility Ends With Unexpected Choice<\/a><\/p>\n READ HERE: <\/strong>Tearful Mo Salah Joined The Kop’s Rendition Of Diogo Jota Chant In Powerful Moment<\/a><\/p>\n Martin Dubravka penalised on Premier League opening day for breaking obscure new rule<\/strong><\/p>\n Martin Dubravka became the first Premier League goalkeeper to be penalised for the updated rules on how long goalkeepers can keep hold of the ball.<\/p>\n It has long been one of the least-enforced rules in football that goalkeepers must release the ball after six seconds, and football’s rulemakers have made some tweaks this year in an attempt to stamp out this issue.<\/p>\n This year will see attacking teams rewarded with a corner kick, should the goalkeeper hold the ball for longer than eight seconds.<\/p>\n In the opening four minutes of Burnley’s visit to Spurs on the opening day of the Premier League, Dubravka fell foul of the new rules.<\/p>\n New signing Dubravka rose highest to claim a cross, taking hold of the ball with the clock at 3:11.<\/p>\n It was a full eight seconds before Dubravka even bounced the ball.<\/p>\n The referee did not call the infringement immediately but, after another six seconds, he blew his whistle and awarded Spurs a corner, prompting applause from their manager Thomas Frank.<\/p>\n Dubravka initially protested before throwing the ball away in frustration at being caught out by the new rules.<\/p>\n It’s an intriguing change and, should it be enforced with any regularity, we can hope it will improve the flow of Premier League games this coming season.<\/p>\n Elsewhere on the opening day, Aston Villa drew 0-0 with Newcastle, while newly-promoted Sunderland stunned West Ham with a 3-0 win on their return to the Premier League. Brighton were held to a 1-1 draw by Fulham, with Rodrigo Muniz equalising in the last minute.<\/p>\n SEE ALSO: <\/strong>Ex-Ireland Soccer International Managing Cork Club’s Run At Hurling Championship<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Martin](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/martin-dubravka-makes-history-as-first-player-penalised-for-new-premier-league-rule.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Maritn](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1755405733_886_martin-dubravka-makes-history-as-first-player-penalised-for-new-premier-league-rule.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Thomas](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1755405733_940_martin-dubravka-makes-history-as-first-player-penalised-for-new-premier-league-rule.png\")
<\/p>\n
![\"Dominic](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1755405733_271_martin-dubravka-makes-history-as-first-player-penalised-for-new-premier-league-rule.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a difficult start to life back in the Premier League for Burnley on Saturday, as they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,795,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-4104","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-premier-league","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}