Play to the 98th minute

Must be a new directive to refs to add on more 'injury' time this season? I was moaning about the injury time at Mansfield and Port Vale earlier this season but watching EFL highlights this weekend there were two separate games where goals were scored in the 97th and 98th minute.

Last night Spain vs England went to the 97th minute.

I can't ever remember this happening on such a regular basis. Is it a response to the stats which show how little the ball is in play in a typical match? Or are more teams time wasting? I'd rather refs just booked players more if they begin time wasting.

3-4 minutes was always the norm with 5-6 being much rarer.

I think that Wycombe fans would be feeling "short changed" with less than 10 minutes stoppage time, given what they have become used to since Ainsworth became manager !

Not sure the ref against Lincoln got the memo.

The silly thing is the norm in previous years has been to play less added time than should be applied given the number of stoppages.

There are two options open for the future of football.

1) Trust a 4th official / timekeeper to have a stop clock which totals the amount of "time wasting", and adds that accordingly to the end of the half. That is what I believe happens now. However, they rarely add much first half stoppage time. Normally it's a minute at the end of the first half, and the rest is added to the end of the second half.

2) They stop the clock every time the ball goes out of play, just like NFL American Football. If they did that you might find yourself still playing at 6pm after a 3pm kick off.

It comes down to the idea of "Fergie time", referred to in the press about all those times Man United scored a 95th minute winner and everyone asking where the time came from. There really needs to be more clarity on how this time is added.

At the end of the season there are always one or two teams who say "if it wasn't for those two 97th and 98th minute winners we would be two points better off and we would have been in the playoffs". Let's hope it's not us saying that come April.

Slovenia game last night must've went to 98th min. All I needed was for them to score so I was quite happy it went on so late, unfortunately this never materialised.