It’s well a known notion that Man United have benefited on a number of occasions from referees adding unusually long periods of extra time to the end of their games, particularly when their losing.
But whereas before this phenomenon was seen as the other teams and fans jealousy of United’s ability to score late goals, research from Opta Sports shows ‘Fergie time’ actually does exist.
Opta found that when United were winning an average of 3 minutes and 18 seconds was added at the end of the 90, but when they were losing that number rose to 4 minutes and 37 seconds, an additional 79 seconds.
As Ferguson likes to play mind games with referees and opposition managers by bringing up incidents from previous games to try and pressurise them, maybe now the refs can get their own back, when Fergie stands on the touchline pointing at his watch demanding another minute that can be their cue to blow the final whistle.
That way we won’t be faced with a situation like when United were drawing 1-1 with Sheffield Wednesday and the ref looked content to carry on playing until they scored, which they eventually did 7 minutes later, maybe we’ll soon see the end of Fergie time.
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