The 57 minute game: Arsenal vs Wigan « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager
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By Walter Broeckx
As since the Wigan game we had a bit of a discussion on the time wasting I have tried to walk where no Untolder has gone before. And believe me this is a one off. Unless someone wants to take this on. Be my guest. In fact come to think of it if there is someone out there who can get the numbers of when a ball is in play and when not you could check them with what you will find here. And if nobody has those numbers and does want to keep an eye on them you can always start a new series: Untold Time Review. Now doesn’t that sound nice? Your own series on Untold? Become famous overnight.
But back to the start: was there a lot of wasted time in the Wigan game or not. Some say yes, some say no. I have tried to find out.
First let me explain how I did this. I have reviewed the whole game and I have entered the time when the ball went out of play and then entered the time when the ball came back in play. With being in play I mean that all the players can freely attack the ball. So when a goalkeeper has the ball in his hands the ball is ‘in play’ but as you cannot attack the goalkeeper in such a moment I also considered it as being ‘not in play’. When the ref has given a foul, a throw, a goal kick, a corner, name it I took the time.
Believe me it was a long job. Because it is amazing how many times the ball is actually unplayable. I will first start with a few comparing statistics between both teams on the major incidents when the ball was out of play. First of all I got to say that the game was stopped at a certain moment for 1m14s for a clash of heads. I have divided this stoppage equally over both teams as this was a painful accident with nobody really to blame.
Now I am not claiming this is correct to the ultimate second. Believe me it is sometimes difficult to know the exact second because sometimes a replay is shown while the ball is brought back in to play. I then judged to my best ability and experience of how long the ball was back in play. So left and right it could be that a second could be wrong. But this isn’t a scientific project so no need to question it like that. I had to do it with the camera angle from what was shown on TV. A final remark I know that sometimes the ball can be further away from a player before he can restart the game. I went for the “it will even out” strategy thinking (and hoping) that this would be the same thing for both teams during the course of the game.
| Seconds | Number | Average/event | ||
| Arsenal throw |
175 |
21 |
8,33 |
|
| Wigan throw |
312 |
16 |
19,50 |
|
| Arsenal free kick |
269 |
16 |
16,81 |
|
| Wigan free kick |
577 |
23 |
25,09 |
|
| Arsenal goal celebration |
37 |
1 |
37,00 |
|
| Wigan goal celebrations |
100 |
2 |
50,00 |
|
| Arsenal goal kick |
86 |
5 |
17,20 |
|
| Wigan goal kick |
365 |
11 |
33,18 |
|
| Arsenal corner |
194 |
10 |
19,40 |
|
| Wigan corner |
90 |
3 |
30,00 |
|
| Arsenal keeper |
5 |
2 |
2,50 |
|
| Wigan keeper |
68 |
6 |
11,33 |
|
| Arsenal changes |
52 |
2 |
26,00 |
|
| Wigan changes |
109 |
3 |
36,33 |
So what can we see? Well first of all that when Arsenal had to take a throw it took not even half the time that Wigan needed.
It took Wigan almost 10 seconds longer to take a free kick. And we got to take notice of the fact that it was only with Arsenal free kicks that a wall had to be built so it lead to a longer time for Arsenal to take a few free kicks. Also the ref calling Arsenal back a few times caused a higher score for Arsenal.
People estimate that a goal celebration takes 30 seconds. It took Arsenal 37 seconds and Wigan around 50 seconds each time. But given the way things went I think this could be understood.
Concerning the goal kicks we see a big difference. The average goal kick from took Wigan more than 30 seconds. So almost more than a goal celebration. It took Arsenal 13 seconds and Wigan 33 seconds. More than the double.
Thank the gods Wigan had only 3 corners as they also took their time to take them. It took them more than 10 seconds longer than Arsenal.
If we see how long a keeper has the ball in his hands we see that Szczesny average 2,5 seconds. While Al Habsi managed an average of more than 11 seconds. And then the ref in me starts thinking: hey wasn’t there a 6 seconds rule installed for this? Well there is but nobody seems to care any more.
Arsenal took also a bit less time to make their changes. One could say the usual tricks in football. Some things can be understood. Wigan can try to bend the rules. It is not their fault that the ref let it go and didn’t do anything about it. And when reviewing the game I also noticed that the ref and the Wigan players enjoyed their being together a times. Lots of smiles and eye winking at some moments in the game and at the interval.
Before I come to the final numbers I would ask you to try to imagine some different scenarios. Imagine going to a concert that is telling you: 2 hours of music by Band X for £100. And when you buy this ticket and you go to the concert they stop after 70 minutes and well that is it. I don’t think you will feel happy.
So let us move back to the Emirates. Because when I started making totals I found that in the game on Monday the ball was unplayable 121 times. I repeat 121 times that the ball was unplayable.
And when I counted the seconds that the ball was unplayable it was 2.495 seconds that the ball was not in play. I repeat 2.495 seconds. And if my calculator is still working this means that expressed in minutes the ball was unplayable for more than 41 minutes.
That is almost one complete half that well…. you don’t see football. And then I ask myself is this still acceptable? Would you accept it from your favourite rock band that they stop halfway the show? Well apparently it was acceptable in football. As nobody mentioned it. Until Untold came with these numbers.
Blimey I must say that I was shocked when I added all those numbers. Officially we played 98 minutes in total (48+50) but from those 98 minutes we only really played 57 minutes. Not even 60% of the promised 90 minutes.
Could we ask a refund to the EPL for this?
Arsenal v Wigan – the ref review, will follow shortly.
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