Time to improve
If you ever wanted an example of how difficult it is to break in to the highest echelon of English football, there was a prime example for all to see on Sunday at Old Trafford. Manchester United finally secured all 3 points against a very impressive and resilient Manchester City side with a goal in the 6th minute of injury time. This despite the fact that the fourth official had originally indicated just 4 minutes of additional time.
The referee explained that he added yet more time to take in to account Manchester City’s 3rd goal celebration. This in itself should only have been about 45 seconds, rather than the near 2 minutes that he played. And, if he added on the time for City’s goal celebration, how come the final whistle went a mere 16 seconds after Michael Owen’s winner as United’s players sure spent longer than that dancing about the pitch in jubilation? Even worse was the sight of SAF then laughing and joking with the fourth official right in front of a clearly unhappy Mark Hughes. As was brilliantly put on one of the football message boards yesterday, there’s ‘normal time’, ‘added time’ and ‘Big Four time’.
It’s all about giving
According to weekend newspaper reports, even before the recent game at Eastlands, Arsenal’s players were a bit miffed with Emmanuel Adebayor when he turned up for the final game of last season with a black bin bag and hoovered up all the football boots and kit of his team mates. His spokesman explained that this was a regular occurrence as Adebayor often sends old and discarded products to deserving causes in Togo. So, it was a bit surprising to see him giving back some brand new footwear to Robin van Persie’s face. He obviously just can help being that generous.
Real in the red
Following the purchases of Kaka, Benzema, Ronaldo et all, Real Madrid have revealed that they are now £296 million in debt. Added to that, they have announced a budget for the coming season of £381 million. It’s just as bad at Barcelona who have announced record debt levels of £361 million.
At last year’s Real Madrid general assembly, the club had outlined similar plans for a £70m reduction in debt. Well clearly that hasn’t happened. So, with Uefa plans in place to ban clubs living beyond their means from European competition from 2012 / 13 and with the world still in economic flux, here’s betting that neither Spanish giants will meet the new qualification standards in two and half years time. Here’s also betting that Uefa will bend their own rules to let them in.
Goodbye to the v1.08
If you are a fan of the PUMA v1.08 football boot, then make sure you follow your favourite big name players in the Carling Cup in midweek as it’s possibly the last time they’ll wear the boot in action. The v1.08 is will be superseded by the v1.10 which launches later this week.
Following the tremendous success enjoyed by the likes of v1.08 wearers Anelka and Eto’o last season, I do hope that PUMA’s designers have got the new boot right. It is radically different and by adding a lace cover, PUMA are taking a massive risk that their branded players will take to the new technology. It does smack a bit of ‘if it ain’t broke, let’s fix it anyway’!
Officials are afraid of Fergie, there have been so many instances of extra time at OT its becoming a joke.
Absolute TOSH to all the people outthere branding the added time at the end of football matches for united as fergie time. Simple rules of the game are that you play until the final whistle. There was also a substitution and a foul given in added time. Chelsea do it, liverpool do it, united do it, there are many teams that DO NOT stop playing until the referee blows that final whistle. Im guessing you all blame the added time for the shocking defending that left michael owen totally unmarked in the area to slot in the winner? like I said earlier, you HAVE to play until the final whistle. simple.
Sorry Keil, I think you are missing the point.
No-one is saying don’t play to the final whistle but that it would be good to have an idea of when that will be.
As Andy quite rightly says in his piece, the ref added on a minute for City’s goal celebration but then allowed only 16 seconds of play after United scored their 4th. So by that, he’s saying that United celebrated for just 16 seconds. Which is clearly not the case.
You are all wrong. There is but one rule at OT and it’s this….you play on until United win. Period!
Football is a funny world. 2 mins over over time and its ref’s are afraid, what a load of rubbish. If it had been the other way the same argument would be happening so its not “the big four time”. if the ref had blown at a 90 mins as he does not have to play stoppage time would that have been fair? its not like Sunday football and have you have to go and run half a mile for the match ball when it goes out and your lucky to get 5 mins stoppage time there. the matches in the top flight hardly pause. find something worth arguing about as this argument would not be happening if Owen missed
Well, what if City had scored a winner on the 95min of extra time, will United blame the ref?
This is a give and take situation, if the time is up and United have the ball in the final 3rd and was about to take a shot, are you expecting the referee to stop play?
well they the statistic figured it out how much time xtra was meant to be added and they were 2 seconds out
all teams should play to the whistle you learn that at a very young age. but the officials always help fergie out. did u see the arsenal, united game??
When the ref adds 4 min, that means at least 4 min. The ref added another min for Citys celebration. He also added 30 sec for Uniteds substitution. He couldn’t blow the wistle while an attack was going on. From 94, United was in a constant attack. When United scored, there were only 16 seconds left. Thats why the whistle went off as soon as it did.
Sorry Stian but your arguement is both factually wrong and completely one-sided.
If the ref adds a minute for one teams goal celebration, why does he not do the same for the other team?? That’s just unfair. Plain and simple.
And of course he can blow the whistle when United are attacking. He can blow the whistle whenever he wants to or, and here’s the crucial bit, whenever he’s brave enough to.
Fenboy, you are missing Stian’s logic, which should be the way to think about this.
You post 4 minutes of injury time. 1 minute of this injury time is arguably eaten up by a goal celebration. So before you even begin playing injury time, you have already lost a minute. That is why they had to add on minute of play. So at 91 minutes, the referee wanted to play at least 4 more minutes. With the substitution, this arguably gave the ref the ability to add on another 30 seconds to that 4 minutes. Thus at 95:30, the added time had expired. When United’s goal came, there was little if no added time left to be played, which is why the referee did not need to add a minute as you contend.
Was it fair? No, but it was at OT and that is how it goes sometimes. Sack up and beat em at Eastlands.
I’ve had enought with this blog and its moaning. Can we not have one cheary post?
And by the way, if you timed it, you would see that the goal came 1 second after added time, celebration time and substitution time was added.
Try not to just jump on the bandwagon please mate
Fenboy, the only person’s argument that is factually wrong or one-sided is your own.
Let’s break this one down and spell it out. Man City scores in the 90th minute. They had just posted 4 minutes added time.
That means that at minimum, 4 minutes must be PLAYED. The ball does not kickoff until 90:45, which the referee feels is a wasted minute. Therefore, at this point, he adds on 1 minute to the added time for the celebration. This would make 95 minutes be the end at this point. Man U makes a sub, which the referee claims takes 30 seconds of time away from the game. This too is added on to the clock. So now 95:30 is the end time.
Man U scores a goal right around 95:30, so what is left of the added time that needs to played? Seconds. Therefore, a minute does not need to be added for their celebration. It is not an eye for an eye here, it is simply how much time of actual football needs to be played.
Likewise, you will never see a referee blow the whistle when a team is attacking in the oppositions third. If Man City cleared the ball to Foster, then that would be the game.
Was it unfair? Perhaps, but your playing at OT and you should expect that. Just because United score does not mean that you add a minute. You add a minute where the added time is affected.
The ref can blow the whistle whenever he wants, look at the Carlton Cole ‘goal’ against Wigan just before half time, he blew JUST as Cole netted.
for that reason the football is beautiful !!!
man utd scored in the 95:58th minute, totally unfair, and also u dont add time on for subs or celbrations in extra time, thats why managers use subbing people as a tactic, added time is the time lost in the second period of 45 minutes not the extra time period, whatever man citys celbration, the ref should have blown at 94 minutes, he didnt, there were plenty of times for him to blow, there was a clearance right before the goal, prime opportunity. the ref was wrong as is the case a lot of the time nowadays
Manchester United won the match. They scored more goals than City. In the super confusing rules of football, the team which scores the most goals, wins the game. United scored more goals.
so many anti man u lol. again if Owen missed this argument would not be happening.
This was in today’s Guardian newspaper.
Sir Alex Ferguson likes to boast that his Manchester United team score more late goals than any other side in the world. Others argue that they get a bit of extra help from referees. It has now emerged that the Premier League champions do, as suspected, benefit from an imbalance in the amount of stoppage time that is added to their matches.
After the controversy over Michael Owen’s winning goal in Sunday’s Manchester derby, the Guardian has looked at all of United’s league matches at Old Trafford since the start of the 2006-07 season and discovered that, on average, there has been over a minute extra added by referees when United do not have the lead after 90 minutes, compared to when they are in front. In 48 games when United were ahead, the average amount of stoppage time was 191.35 seconds. In 12 matches when United were drawing or losing there was an average of 257.17sec.
in the guardian it says a lot of things!
hugh mate… just give up… al wrong
I was at the Newcastle Jets v. Sydney FC Game On the 20th of September (the other day) And Jets Midfielder Song Jin Hyung (think thats how you spell it) Was Wearing A Pair Of Bright Yellom Puma Boots, That Resembled The Puma V1.10. Fairly Certain They Were The New Pumas! =0
You are absolutely right JamieB – Song was wearing the new v1.10’s.