A new rule to prevent goalkeepers from time-wasting has now come into force, which will have an impact on Hull City when they kick off the new Championship campaign in just under two months.
Goalkeepers will now concede a corner for holding onto the ball for too long. The new law will see shot-stoppers permitted to hold onto the ball for a total of eight seconds instead of six.
If they fail to release the ball inside eight seconds, the referee will award a corner against their team. The previous law saw goalkeepers forced to release the ball inside six seconds, otherwise an indirect free-kick was awarded against them. However, that law was rarely enforced by referees in the English game and led to significant frustration from the terraces.
The start of the UEFA European Under-21 Championship in Slovakia last week has seen the law come into play for the first time, with Spain winning 3-2 against the hosts, while Italy beat Romania 1-0, Georgia won 2-1 against Poland and Portugal and France had a goalless draw. Reigning champions England kicked off their campaign with a dominant 3-1 win over Czechia.
Managers up and down the country will be watching to see how the new law is enforced in real life and whether or not it is actually implemented for any significant period beyond the early weeks of the season.
City will once again come up against Birmingham City when the new campaign gets underway, and Blues boss Chris Davies revealed his delight at a change in the rule after becoming frustrated at the time-wasting against his side in their promotion-winning season.
“I know it’s eight seconds next year and it will be a corner, which will present its own problems when they are counting down, but I’m absolutely delighted something is being done,” Davies mused back in April.
“What I always say to the fourth official is, and this was the same when I was working at other clubs… if you stop the game and picture on six seconds, hardly any of their players will be in position wanting the ball, the strikers will be nowhere near the halfway line ready for a long ball, it would completely change their strategy.
“But if you give a team 20, 22, 23 seconds, they will take a breath, they’ll move up, they’ll get in position, they’ll have a little chat, the ball will go long… That is impossible to do if they enforce it and it would mean the game is much more exciting for the fans as well because the ball would be in play.
“The next thing that’s going to happen next season is that teams will find a way (to slow the game down). They’ll have goalkeepers who sort of control the ball and wait for someone to come towards him, then he would pick it up. They might shield it with their bodies until they actually have to grab the ball. There will be creative ways that teams try to deal with that.
“In terms of the ball off the side of the pitch, it would do us no harm to have a reasonable countdown. For us and teams that want the ball in play, we’re going to benefit from the new rule next season and the others are going to have to find a way to cope with it.”
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