That was a cracking game last night, thoroughly enjoyable, Newcastle played well and were unlucky against a good team who also played well. I've watched Newcastle a few times this season and thought they were unlucky on a few occasions, I don't think their league position is a true reflection on how well they've played. On the face of it, the keeper definitely cost them a point over the weekend and arguably two points last night, although the Wolves keeper also didn't cover himself in glory. I didn't think it was a foul, but wouldn't have been surprised if it had been given as a foul and as other have pointed out VAR would probably have over turned the goal. However I don't think it would necessarily have been over turned for the right reasons but more to do with the incident looking worse when slowed down. We have a very good TV review system in cricket, its almost perfect but its taken many iterations to get right. One of its flaws was that when there was a review to see if a catch had carried to a fielder, the slow-mo, magnified image always looked worse than the real time action in terms of whether the catch was taken cleanly. Cricketers are usually pretty honest about claiming a clean catch and when I've seen some catches over turned you can tell by the players reactions that its a reviewing mistake. They've since changed the system in that the on field umpire gives a 'soft' signal about the catch and unless there is conclusive TV review evidence, the decision quite rightly goes with the on field umpire.
In terms of the timekeeping last night, the added on time felt slightly too long, but then again Newcastle spent a lot of time farting about with substitutions on the 90 minutes mark, so I guess they got what they deserved, let’s face it substitutions at that point are all about time wasting. I believe there is a new rule coming in (proposed?) that you will not be allowed to make a substitution during injury time which is the right thing to do. As others have pointed out, the time keeping should be taken completely out of the hands of the referee, it’s just being used as yet another stick to beat the poor sods with, when the real culprits are the players and managers. When you look at the time keeping and reviewing systems for a multitude of other sports around the world, you realise how backwards football is in the way its run, again that’s not helped by the players some of whom still argue with a referee after a goal line technology decision! I really don’t see any reason why we can’t have a separate time keeper, preferably anonymous, sat in the stand watching the game and pausing the clock for stoppages. Every ground now has a big screen and the clock could be displayed on that with an indication that the game is paused, they could even have a separate timer for substitutes and take action against players taking longer than 30 seconds to get off the field. The problem is how far do you take it? If they paused for corners and throw in’s I’m sure it would add at least 10-15 minutes onto every game as I think I remember reading once that on average the ball is only in play for sixty odd minutes at a football game.