I’ve noticed a recent trend to my blow the whistle until a player touches the ball. It used to be they’d blow as soon as the ball was played. Nobody made as fuss about it until now. It was just annoying before. If it is offside why wait until they physically touch the ball? We’re just wasting time.

Now we’ve seen the result. The new directive is to wait until the player touches the ball. So we have a situation where it’s clearly offside but they can’t blow the whistle until someone touches it.

It was only a matter of time until someone exploited this loophole. No doubt they will go back to just blowing for offside when the ball is played.