Ruben Neves has claimed referees have been told they need to add more stoppage time as the Premier League season reaches its climax. Speaking after Wolves’ 1-1 draw with Everton yesterday, the midfielder voiced his irritation at the fact there were nine minutes of added time, enough for Yerry Mina to score a last-gasp equaliser and deny the hosts a victory. Ten minutes were also played at Anfield as the English top flight was reminiscent of Qatar 2022 in which matches could last more than 100 minutes.
And Neves, who could well have played at Molineux for the final time, was not happy.
Ruben Neves said: “The only thing I can say is the nine minutes [of stoppage time]. We never saw that during the season. I asked the ref why. He told me the refs have been told to give exactly [the] time on the last two games. I don’t know why they haven’t been doing it all season and only in the last two games. Maybe to be more competitive, to put a bit more adrenalin on the Premier League but that doesn’t make sense to me. If you want to do it for the last two games, you need to do it all season and not only in the last two games. We’ve had some games in here that they away team waste so much time where they [only] gave four or five minutes. We asked why, every single time they told us ‘This is the Premier League, not the World Cup’. For the last two games they decided to be the World Cup.”
Wolves went ahead just after the half hour through Hwang Hee-Chan, after good work by Adama Traore. However, Mina’s leveller not only gave the Toffees a Premier League life-line, it denied the hosts what would have been a deserved three points.
