Anthony Taylor. I’ll use one incident to epitomise the way he refereed the game.
60th min. West Ham leading 2-1.
Fabianski for the first time in the match decides to do the time wasting thing of reshuffling the ball while taking a goal kick. Taylor, without hesitation, brandishes a yellow card.
Now, in our games, many teams are doing this from the first second. For the first 30 mins, usually the ref does nothing at all. Just before half time, he will point at his watch, but then add nothing to the end of the half. Then in the second half, nothing will be done till he decides to have a little word in the 80th minute.
But yesterday, not so for $hitty. Card is out right away. No talking to. Just a warning to show anyone that if they waste time, he has $hitty’s back.
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Comes down to what we were talking about two weeks ago. It’s arbitrary and leaves the process open to be gamed. West Ham did not do anything unusual during stoppage time and City had the ball for most of it. So where did the extra playing time come from?
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It came from Taylor.
But we already know that.
Given the record of the Abu Dhabi* scumbags it seems almost certain that they have tried (I’m not saying they have definitely been successful) to look at how they could influence and persuade referees to see their point of view. Juventus have done it; Cheaty have already demonstrated a willingness to cheat and their owners have long form for corruption and doing unspeakable things to people - it would surely be more of a surprise if they hadn’t tried something here.
Unfortunately the evidence in front of our eyes - which is all we’ve got at this stage - suggests they may even have had some success…
*Will probably also apply for the sandcastle’s saudi scumbags in the future
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This didn’t get the appreciation it deserved. 
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Was it this season or last season the ref booked a player on the losing team for time wasting?
Huddersfield wasted time when they were 3-0 down against us because GD was a factor 
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The problem with football timekeeping - and it is part of the reason why it is the beautiful game - is that it is imprecise.
If you look at numerous other sports the clock counts down to zero, and it stops throughout the game as play stops for various reasons. Depending on the sport, even going down to a fraction of a second might mean enough time to execute a possible game winning play.
Football has always felt a lot more open ended in it’s time keeping, by comparison.
Now, in recent years there has been more scrutiny on this, with time added on, and 30 seconds for a sub, and the time wasting tactics that teams employ, and so on and so forth. We are starting to demand greater scientific accuracy of a game that has only really given an approximation.
If we want it to be exact, the game will need to change, clock counting down, minimum amount of time the ball is in play (say 60 mins) and take it from there.
I don’t think that will happen.
As for City, alls well that ends well, and they dropped two points.
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Without watching the 4 minutes I wouldn’t know but making a sub is asking for trouble.
It will be driven by the demands of broadcasters and advertisers. They want to know as exactly as possible what time the game will finish.
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Arsenal would be an interesting move, if he wanted to become an irrelevant player.
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I don’t think he would be an irrelevant player at Arsenal, more the fact he’d be joining an irrelevant team
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My guess, having not heard that he is available on a free is that this summer he will be entering the final 12 months of his contract, so they are to decide sell him this summer, or let him go for free in 12 months
According to transfermarkt, his contract is up in 2023 Ilkay Gündogan - Player profile 21/22 | Transfermarkt
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