Guardian: ManU plays with the clock to beat City

Home cooking, English-style:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2009/sep/23/extra-time-manchester-derby

So you cannot say these scores do not have lasting significance. If it seems a shame that the pulsating drama at Old Trafford on Sunday should have been overshadowed by the time-keeping controversy at the end, perhaps this Manchester derby might help clear up similar misunderstandings in future.

For while the referee was clearly correct in adding extra seconds to compensate for City's goal celebrations, the whole purpose of holding up a board showing the number of minutes remaining is to make stoppage time finite and prevent the old situation where no one in the ground except the referee knew how long was left, and matches often seemed to continue until an unlikely late winner was scored. If the board says four minutes, then something like four minutes is what should be played. Not six. There was a similar situation at Anfield this season when Aston Villa scored a goal in first-half stoppage time that Rafa Benítez was about to complain about until he realised that a few seconds had rightly been added for time needlessly wasted by his own goalkeeper.

Justice was done on that occasion, but one felt City were rather harshly treated on Sunday. They saw the board indicate four minutes, they played four minutes. Then they played five minutes, and at that point were merely hoofing clearances downfield in the expectation that the whistle would come. It didn't, and while in the end they paid the penalty for sloppy marking and a failure to close the game out, they were at least entitled to ask why the amount of stoppage time played bore so little relation to the amount indicated. The board system has worked pretty well since its introduction – it seems amazing now that football put up with open-ended stoppage time for so long – but clearly if four can mean six it can mean almost anything and we will soon be back where we started.

Even if every second of the time added to added time can be correctly accounted for, it still means City should have ignored the number on the board and played to the whistle. So what's the point of having a board? If you are going to play six minutes of added time it is wholly unsatisfactory to indicate to everyone present, not least City's beleaguered defenders, that there are just four minutes to go. I have never been a fan of clocks running down on the scoreboard or US-style countdowns, believing we now have a system that is both simple and sufficient, though now I'm not so sure. Either tell the crowd and the players everything, or tell them nothing. Telling them something misleading is worse than useless.

whether it be a penalty decision or all the extra time that was added on last weekend, it's nothing new.

I saw Arsene Wenger yesterday calling for a clearer explanation of the stoppage time rules...like most thoughts from the Arsenal head man, that's a good idea.

...Sounds like sour grapes to me.