Time Wasting

[fruitvilla]

@Genie's OP asked what we thought of Villa's time-wasting. Many seem to think it is OK to have game management/cheating. And this is fair enough as far as it goes. It would appear we think our players don't have the skill to use up time on the field by not attempting to score ... eg take the ball to a corner etc.

Then we can have the game has gone type threads or perhaps go to a commercial break whilst the goalie takes a goal kick or Cash takes a throw-in. Ultimately sponsors will slowly back away when the game/team becomes too boring or too negative.

Villa fans might not care how Villa win so long as they win; fair enough. I'm sorry but I want Villa to win in style.

[Pinebro]

Time wasting is an Unai Emery thing.

I've seen him doing it at Villareal in Europe.

Especially against on paper stronger sides.

[Adman]

I don't like it, would prefer the rule makers found a fair and implementable way to discourage the worst of it.  While they don't - I hope we use it to our advantage as much as everyone else does 

[Pinebro]

Would love it if we did this against Newcastle.

Can't stand their fanbase.

[TomC]

Thoughts from a former ref...I joined the thread late and haven't read the whole thing, so sorry if any of this has been said.

Not much needs to be changed in the Laws of the Game. The refs just need to enforce what's already there!

The first step to solve the problem is for refs to add the time that they should be for stoppages. I can't remember where I saw it, but someone did a study recently and found that refs were adding only a little over half the time they should. When I was a ref, if I thought someone was wasting time, I would go to the obviously-faking "injured" player or to the player delaying taking the throw in and say, "I'm adding time." They usually got the message. If they kept wasting time, I'd go back and say, "I've already added 30 seconds, do you want more?" And I did add the time.

IFAB did makes some sensible changes a few years back...it used to be that the only three things for which you could add time were injuries, substitutions, and deliberate time-wasting. Some other things now included are disciplinary sanctions (i.e. administering cards), goal celebrations, and VAR checks. But I question whether the refs are actually adding this time.

Another step is to use the yellow card. I've seen players in the PL park right in front of the ball on a free kick without punishment. When I was a ref, we were taught that, if a defender even moved towards the ball to delay the free kick (let alone park right in front of it), you booked him. If you booked just one player, you would never have a problem the rest of the match. At professional level, where refs are well-known enough to have reputations, if you did it 2 or 3 times in a month, word would get out and you probably wouldn't have a problem again for a year. Just do it!

Goalkeepers are already required to release the ball from their hands within 6 seconds, but I don't think I've ever seen this enforced at professional level. Basketball referees already have mechanics for enforcing rules like this...I won't try to explain the rule in question, but below I'm posting a basketball referee enforcing a 5 second rule in live play. Watch the ref at the bottom. You count the 5 (or 6) seconds out loud and you extend your arm each second to make the count clear even from far away. The ref in this video didn't do it, but some referees also extend their fingers one at a time to keep count on their hand. Just have the linesmen copy that.

The Laws do not have a time limit on throw-ins or goal kicks, but they should. Basketball has a time limit on inbound passes (throw-ins) even though it's a stop-clock sport; the player may not be wasting game clock time by delaying an inbound, but they still don't want players taking forever. The refs use the same counting mechanism for this that I just mentioned.

I very emphatically don't like the idea of a stop-clock. Once you do that, the advertisers will want a minute to show ads during a stop and pretty soon it will be like American sport where the game is all chopped up and takes 3+ hours to play 60 minutes of actual play.

 

 

[Pinebro]

Ref did add 7 minutes injury time to be fair.

So it gets even out?

[useless]

Time wasting is an every club thing¹, all teams now do it to an excessive extent, there was a time when a team like Stoke would get widespread criticism for it and it was looked down upon as it was seen as a form of anti football, but now every team does it, you even see it at U21 level now in games where the result doesn't really matter.

I remember watching Arsenal last season and they were doing it when leading against Everton, players constantly going down easily then pretending that they couldn't get back up to waste as much time as possible, on that occassion it worked against The Gunners as Everton scored two late goals.

It often spoils games as a spectacle as as above the team leading will constantly have their players pretend to be injured to waste time which spoils the flow of the game and also leads to less playing time because referees won't add on as much time as is being wasted.

It's got to the point now where every team is doing it so if one or two clubs made the decision not to do it they would be putting themselves at a disadvantage, it's similar to the cheating for penalties thing, if other clubs are doing it and gaining an advantage by doing it then you have to join in.

The only way it can be stopped now or lessened is if the authorities come up with a way of doing something about it, teams aren't going to stop doing it out of choice, just like they aren't going to tell their players to stop 'buying' penalties or whatever.

Edited November 14, 2022 by useless
Notes: 1, And when I say an every club thing I mean every club, even the very best teams you will see wasting time

[StewieGriffin]

On 13/11/2022 at 16:12, messi11 said:

who cares who you're winning games. End of thread 

Basically this. If we'd been naiive and not ran the clock down, we'd all be moaning that we hadn't. Everyone does it, Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea and Man Utd are the masters of shithousing/time wasting/"game management". No surprise that those 4 generally win more games/trophies than anyone else

Hypothetically, if it's 1-0 to Villa in the Champions League/Europa League/FA Cup Final, or in a game we'd need to win to ensure a European qualification place and time-wasting will see us home then sign me the **** up.

In order to get to those type of games, you have to win and get used to winning. I think at some point if we're 1-0 up at home to, say, Walsall in the cup and we see a 2nd half like yesterday then I think that's an entitlement to be frustrated by it, but away from home against a good side then I'll take 3 ugly points rather than 1 point because we've been nice old Aston Villa and made a game of it.

Some of the Gerrard stuff was embarrassing - time wasting at Fulham, Leeds and Forest was shambolic and more a symbol of his ineptitude than anything else.

 

Edited November 14, 2022 by StewieGriffin

[fruitvilla]

31 minutes ago, TomC said:

if a defender even moved towards the ball to delay the free kick (let alone park right in front of it), you booked him.

This ... and generally moving the ball after a foul to give your team time to set up the defence. Yep, enforce the rules that we do have first.

I can't give your post enough likes

 

[useless]

Why are people yapping on about all this negative stuff like penalties, time wasting, being a dirty team, when we've just had two memorable victories and have a newly appointed best in class coach.

[Genie]

55 minutes ago, Pinebro said:

Time wasting is an Unai Emery thing.

I've seen him doing it at Villareal in Europe.

Especially against on paper stronger sides.

I think in scenarios like that then the threshold of acceptability is higher. Playing a “big” side, knockout football, European football… but a league game against Brighton? Not for me. 

[Adman]

38 minutes ago, TomC said:

Thoughts from a former ref...I joined the thread late and haven't read the whole thing, so sorry if any of this has been said.

Not much needs to be changed in the Laws of the Game. The refs just need to enforce what's already there!

The first step to solve the problem is for refs to add the time that they should be for stoppages. I can't remember where I saw it, but someone did a study recently and found that refs were adding only a little over half the time they should. When I was a ref, if I thought someone was wasting time, I would go to the obviously-faking "injured" player or to the player delaying taking the throw in and say, "I'm adding time." They usually got the message. If they kept wasting time, I'd go back and say, "I've already added 30 seconds, do you want more?" And I did add the time.

IFAB did makes some sensible changes a few years back...it used to be that the only three things for which you could add time were injuries, substitutions, and deliberate time-wasting. Some other things now included are disciplinary sanctions (i.e. administering cards), goal celebrations, and VAR checks. But I question whether the refs are actually adding this time.

Another step is to use the yellow card. I've seen players in the PL park right in front of the ball on a free kick without punishment. When I was a ref, we were taught that, if a defender even moved towards the ball to delay the free kick (let alone park right in front of it), you booked him. If you booked just one player, you would never have a problem the rest of the match. At professional level, where refs are well-known enough to have reputations, if you did it 2 or 3 times in a month, word would get out and you probably wouldn't have a problem again for a year. Just do it!

Goalkeepers are already required to release the ball from their hands within 6 seconds, but I don't think I've ever seen this enforced at professional level. Basketball referees already have mechanics for enforcing rules like this...I won't try to explain the rule in question, but below I'm posting a basketball referee enforcing a 5 second rule in live play. Watch the ref at the bottom. You count the 5 (or 6) seconds out loud and you extend your arm each second to make the count clear even from far away. The ref in this video didn't do it, but some referees also extend their fingers one at a time to keep count on their hand. Just have the linesmen copy that.

The Laws do not have a time limit on throw-ins or goal kicks, but they should. Basketball has a time limit on inbound passes (throw-ins) even though it's a stop-clock sport; the player may not be wasting game clock time by delaying an inbound, but they still don't want players taking forever. The refs use the same counting mechanism for this that I just mentioned.

I very emphatically don't like the idea of a stop-clock. Once you do that, the advertisers will want a minute to show ads during a stop and pretty soon it will be like American sport where the game is all chopped up and takes 3+ hours to play 60 minutes of actual play.

 

 

Thanks for your input.  The trouble with the current rules is that they can be implemented as, when, and to the extent it suits the officials on the day.  This usually leads to the bigger clubs gaining their usual advantage

[fruitvilla]

5 minutes ago, useless said:

when we've just had two memorable victories

Because I don't know how to spin this out endlessly a la Rashica or Gerrard was crap.

[TomC]

37 minutes ago, Adman said:

Thanks for your input.  The trouble with the current rules is that they can be implemented as, when, and to the extent it suits the officials on the day.  This usually leads to the bigger clubs gaining their usual advantage

What comes first, the chicken or the egg? If the big 6 seem to get away with more time wasting, it's probably because they're in the lead far more often and have more opportunities to do it!

 

[May-Z]

Thought this was a thread about having Gerrard for a year.

Now that's a waste if time.

[DJBOB]

Counter-point, we didn't need to waste a lot of time against United did we 

To be honest - I think we're going to have a lot of heart attack games under Unai so I'll welcome the 10 minutes of time wasting so I can calm down.

[ThunderPower_14]

Time wasting is a blight on the game, but the current added time system means only a tiny fraction of the wasted time will be added. Because of that, if wasting time means we're a better chance of winning, we must do it. 

If you want it out of the game, petition FIFA, not Aston Villa. While the rules are as they are, we do what it takes to win. 

[brommy]

2 hours ago, ThunderPower_14 said:

Time wasting is a blight on the game, but the current added time system means only a tiny fraction of the wasted time will be added. Because of that, if wasting time means we're a better chance of winning, we must do it. 

If you want it out of the game, petition FIFA, not Aston Villa. While the rules are as they are, we do what it takes to win. 

It appears that this season has seen a change so that delays in play are more accurately reflected in time added on. Otherwise, there's no way 8 minutes would have been added at Brighton just for one goal, a few subs and for Emi 1's 'injury'.

[PussEKatt]

Time wasting is part of the game,just like bad tackles and hand ball if it means stopping a goal attempt,etc etc etc.So, get used to it.The reason we never wasted time before is because we were never far enough in front.

[DJBOB]

2 hours ago, PussEKatt said:

Time wasting is part of the game,just like bad tackles and hand ball if it means stopping a goal attempt,etc etc etc.So, get used to it.The reason we never wasted time before is because we were never far enough in front.

Hard to waste time if you're always behind.

Gerrad masterclass.