Tony Mowbray has called on officials to clamp down on the kind of go-slow gamesmanship that meant the ball was in play for less than half of Sunderland's draw against Preston at the weekend. The Black Cats played out a goalless stalemate against Preston at the Stadium of Light, with the visitors slowing the game down at every opportunity with niggly fouls and taking as long as possible when restarting play with goal-kicks and throw-ins.
Mowbray says the stats showed there was only 44 minutes of actual playing time across the 90 minutes of the match - a figure he described as 'frightening'. He says it is no surprise that teams try to dampen down the atmosphere on Wearside, and was also honest enough to admit that his team might employ the same tactics at times away from home, but says it is up to the officials to keep the game moving.
"I watched the goalless draw between Leeds United and Aston Villa game at the weekend and afterwards Jesse Marsch was talking about gamesmanship," said Mowbray. "And at the weekend, the stats said that the ball was only in play for 44 minutes in our game against Preston - 44 minutes!
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"It's not enough, and how do you manage that? It's very difficult to sit after a game and talk about slowing it down, taking too long for goal-kicks, taking too long for throw-ins, always stopping the game for little fouls.
"You can call it professionalism, you can call it clever, you can call it whatever you want, and I think if I was an opposing manager coming to the Stadium of Light with 40-odd thousand in, I'd want to keep them quiet and slow everything down, not make the game fast so everything is a tackle and it's end-to-end. You'd want to slow it down, make it boring, keep the fans quiet.
"I'd like there to be more of an understanding from the officials about the tactical stuff around how games work, really. Yet, are we going to do that away from home if we're winning 2-1 late in the game? Are we going to slow it down, someone go down with an injury?
"Maybe, because if you don't then you are seen as naive. It's difficult to complain about it, but I just think that the officials should see it a bit better.
"Even after five or ten minutes, if the goalie is taking too long to take a goal-kick, hurry him up and get the game going. Particularly at our stadium where we are trying to make the game alive and get the fans wrapped up in the next tackle, the next challenge, the next cross, the next shot.
"Everything was so slow [on Saturday], and it's frustrating. When you then see after the game that the ball was only in play for 44 minutes out of the 90, it's frightening really.
"I feel the referee has a duty, because people pay their hard-earned money to come and watch the game. They've literally only watched 44 minutes of football in a 90 minute match."
With much of Sunderland's attacking threat coming down the left flank through winger Jack Clarke, Preston used a central midfielder at wingback to stop him one way or another. Mowbray said: "Their staff talked after the game and they actually used the word 'scared' - they were scared of our two wide attackers.
"They put Alan Browne, probably their fastest and strongest footballer who normally plays as a number eight, at right wingback, to physically try and deal with Jack Clarke. I don't want to be that manager who complains all the time about how many times Jack Clarke gets kicked, or how many times Patrick Roberts gets dragged back.
"I can understand why teams do it. I'm not saying I would do it, but if you are playing against a team with some really fast, technical, footballers who get the crowd on their feet then you have to find a way to quieten it down, slow it down.
"Whose job is it to keep the game going? Or does the manager just have to moan after every game that his team didn't get much help today because the game was so stop-start?
"How many fouls can one player make? I said to the fourth official, their right wingback must have fouled Jack Clarke eight or nine times in the first half and yet it just carried on.
"You know what then happens, a player maybe gets booked in the 85th minute for what is by then his 12th foul. It's a bit frustrating."
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