I am writing this while watching the Everton v Chelsea match, and referee Bobby Madley has managed to annoy me, not for the first time this season, for the amount of time he takes to re-start play.
The Everton left-back Martina has fouled Chelsea’s Moses near the corner of his penalty area. Madley has decided it is worthy of a yellow card. By the time Chelsea have taken their free-kick, 95 seconds, over one and a half minutes, have elapsed!
Was Moses injured, and needed the physio? No. Was there pushing and shoving in the box, before the kick was taken, requiring his intervention? No. Was the Chelsea 3-man wall being particularly stubborn in not retiring the correct distance? No. Was anyone deliberately time-wasting at all? No, this happened 20 minutes into the game, at 0-0.
So what on earth was going on for 95 seconds, I hear you ask? Well. In my opinion, nothing that should have taken any more than 30 seconds.
Ok, he had to caution Martina. When I used to referee back in the day, you had to actually write down the player’s name and that could take a few seconds. Nowadays a Premier League referee simply has to brandish the yellow card in the general direction of the offender, and put a tick on his card for reference. Job done!
He has to make sure the free-kick is taken from the correct place, and ensure the defenders are all 10 yards away. Most of the time everyone gets in position without the ref having to say or do anything, and we can get on with the game. Sometimes, the ref must use his authority to get everything set up correctly. And now he has his can of foam to help him, fair enough. But how long does it take to do one little spray, move ten yards, and spray some more?
Finally, the referee moves into his preferred position to best see what happens next, and blows his whistle.
So what was is that took Madley so long. First of all he took ages to caution Martina. Instead of getting his card out as he approached the incident and showing Martina the card immediately, he allowed him to leave the scene of the crime and then needed to call him back to show him the card. He also seemed to feel the need to take further time out to explain to Martina and his captain Jagielka why he was cautioning him. It was obvious why, it was a late tackle, and no explanation was needed. After all that, he did the 10-yard thing, which took longer than necessary and seemed to involve him chatting to the 3-man wall about goodness knows what (if they put their arms up and handle the ball that’s their problem, they don’t need to have it explained to them every time). Then he walked casually across to the edge of the box, with no sense of urgency, and finally blew his whistle. GET A MOVE ON, MAN!
In my opinion, the referee has effectively wasted a minute by his own actions. Referees must realise that later in the game and especially when you are losing, this slovenly approach to timekeeping is infuriating. It’s not something that time gets added on for (he added exactly one minute to the end of this half by the way, and that happens in almost every game), and anyway it can give a team under pressure time to get their breath back and stops momentum. It’s bad enough when players waste time without referees doing it as well.
In case you think I am having a pop at one specific referee, I’m not. All referees have a duty to keep the game flowing, but some referees like to be the centre of attention a bit too much, and the FA must bring the offenders back into line.