Former Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher believes officials are doing more this season to address ‘time-wasting’ despite Leeds United’s frustrations on Sunday. Not for the first time in the Whites’ opening seven matches, Jesse Marsch felt that not enough was done to stop visiting teams at Elland Road from slowing the game down.
The Leeds boss said after the match: “Yes. I will be speaking to somebody from the league or I've already spoken with the referee committee that this is clearly a tactic. I was told, managers were told, and by the way, they took up another hour and a half of our time this past week to remind us that they're going to do better with controlling the play, the run of play in matches.
“I didn't create that dialogue, that's not my agenda, that's the league's agenda. I feel bad for our fans when they have to come to this match and they have to watch that, they want to see an energetic game that has a lot to see. So, I will be discussing that was somebody and we will as a club.”
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On Sky Sports this morning, Gallagher was posed the question as to whether referees are taking it seriously enough, referencing Sunday’s Manchester derby, when only two minutes was added on in the second half after eight substitutions and four goals. While admitting that was ‘unusual’, he believes more time is being added on at the end of halves than ever before.
He said: “That was unusual though wasn’t it two minutes [Manchester derby]. We’ve seen first halves now with three or four minutes added, and then in second halves five and six minutes added. There’s much more time added this season than ever before, but the Manchester derby was very unusual – two minutes.”
Sue Smith then asked: “Yeah it [timewasting] does [frustrate me] and I was just wondering if a goalkeeper, if they takes ages taking a goal kick, would you go over initially and say to them, ‘you need to hurry up?’ Then if they did it again would you then book them?”
Gallagher responded: “That actually happened at Leeds didn’t it, he told the goalkeeper to speed up in the first half, which is again unusual, we never saw that before. I think they’re more aware of it but it stood out for what you say because there was only two minutes added at Manchester yesterday.”
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