I like it when football makes little tweaks and changes to try and freshen things up. Not VAR-sized changes, admittedly, but little ones that are aimed at making the sport that bit better.

And, at face value, that is precisely what the rule makers have done with their new “goalkeepers can only hold the ball for eight seconds” directive. As you would imagine, this is aimed at reducing time wasting, one of football’s uglier practices.

The unusual thing about this new rule, however, is that it isn’t actually new.

What younger readers may not know is that this rule already exists. As things stand right now, if a goalkeeper holds on to the ball for more than six seconds, the referee is supposed to award the opposing team an indirect free kick.

That rule has been around for, and this is my guesstimation, maybe 20 or 30 years. Possibly longer. But when was the last time you saw it implemented? Sometime around never years ago!

At the beginning you did see referees doing a fingers-in-the-air countdown to spur goalkeepers on to get rid of the ball. And once in a blue moon they would actually award the free kick.

But that was rarer than a Southampton clean sheet, and the whole thing gradually went out of fashion, possibly because the actual countdown is not a precise science. Has he picked up the ball yet? When should I start counting? What if he bounces it? I only have five digits on my hand so how can I count down from six?

So, what makes the authorities believe this new version of an old rule will be more effective?

The fact that the time has been extended from six seconds to eight is neither here nor there. Goalkeepers are well capable of counting up to both those numbers with little or no bother, so that isn’t really a game changer.

But cleverly they have reduced the punishment for this particular brand of time wasting from an indirect free kick to a corner. As you can imagine, an indirect free kick from inside the box can have devastating consequences on a game. Corners, however, are considerably less lethal, with only one in 50 actually resulting in a goal.

By reducing the punishment to something that is almost negligible, the authorities have made referees much happier to implement it. Any decent official wants to avoid making decisions that could have direct impact on the outcome of a game. And this punishment has almost been downgraded to the level of merely changing possession.

Is that enough of a deterrent? Probably. If a keeper is thinking about time wasting in the first place, it is because the game is delicately poised, and the last thing he will want is to give the ball to his opponents in his own half.

So yeah, all in all this is a pretty good idea. Let’s just hope implementing this new rule doesn’t start off strong and fade away like the old one did.

Frying pan to the fire?

A while back, when the takeover of their club was still up in the air, I warned Manchester United fans that sometimes in life it is better the devil you know.

At the time, the club’s fans were desperate to see the back of the Glazer family, who had specialised in milking the Old Trafford cash cow for their own benefit for more than a decade. The theory was that anyone would do a better job of running the club than the Americans.

Step forward Sir James Ratcliffe and Ineos, who bought a chunk of the club for £1.5 billion and assumed control of all football operations. Surely with a lifelong United fan pulling the strings, things would improve?

Nope!

Getting rid of Sir Alex and firing the tea ladies is no way to get the rest of the organisation and, crucially, the fans on board

The team has gone from bad to worse, there has been continued chaos at executive level, and morale in every department of the organisation is at rock bottom due to mass redundancies among ‘lesser’ staff.

A couple of weeks ago the club announced a further 200 people were to lose their jobs as they try to balance the books and avoid breaching financial fair play rules.

Ratcliffe will insist that everything he is doing is with the club’s best interests at heart. And that may well be the case. But there are ways and means of doing things, and getting rid of Sir Alex Ferguson and firing the tea ladies is no way to get the rest of the organisation and, crucially, the fans on board, certainly not when you have top executives earning millions and a bunch of underperforming players taking home the equivalent of a small country’s GDP.

Ultimately this could, and potentially will, end up being short-term pain for long-term gain. As a fan, Ratcliffe doesn’t want the club to fail on the pitch, and as an investor he doesn’t want it to fail financially.

But right now it feels like the club has not only taken a few steps backwards but that, in trying to fix things, Sir James has only managed to rip the heart and soul out of Old Trafford.

The only way to improve morale right now would be for Sir James to announce another wave of redundancies but this time go for the people that will: a) make a serious difference to finances and b) deserve to lose their jobs.

So that’s the board, the C-level executives, and most of the squad...

Will we see a McJosé ?

I don’t think we will ever see my old favourite José Mourinho managing in England again. That ship has sadly sailed.

However, last week the former ‘special one’ admitted he could be tempted to manage in Scotland. Now that could be interesting.

I think it goes without saying that it would need to be either Celtic or Rangers to tempt him north of the border, purely based on size and budgets. And that would throw one of the most controversial and outspoken managers of all time right in the middle of one of the most intense football rivalries on the planet.

I think it’s fair to say that could be rather explosive.

Is it likely to happen right now? Maybe not. As it stands, José has a job and Celtic are probably more than happy with Brendan Rodgers.

But you can tell José isn’t entirely content in Turkey, and Rangers are looking for a long-term manager, so maybe, just maybe, it could come to pass.

And then sit back and enjoy the fireworks...

E-mail: James.calvert@timesofmalta.com

X: @maltablade