Have you watched a replay of it?
No way could he got his head down to that in time, not sure he could’ve chested it either, felt it was too low for that too.
I did, the deflection happened quickly but the ball was looping at a pretty slow pace.
There was enough time for a head or a chest down if he moved his feet faster into the flight path of the ball.
But he chose to focus on the spot where the ball was going to land, rather than taking it out mid-flight.
That's not the fundamental mistake here though. Once you make that decision you need to think about who might be in that drop zone...and what the implications of a wild swing might be.
I agree with you on the awareness thing although in such a frantic match I can see why it happens. Like with Raya I was like “what the hell were you thinking” but with the Rice penalty I just wrote it off as one of those things that can happen
Classic example of being caught in two minds on what to do with the ball and ended up doing neither. It happens.