AFTER Leicester City players confessed they did not know what they got yellow cards for, I said I would look at what makes a referee reach for the yellow card. Although the Laws only lists six offences, these have a multitude of sub-headings.

Let’s just look at the first offence, 'Delaying the restart of play'.

This includes standing in front of the ball to prevent a free-kick being taken, taking too long to take a throw-in or a free-kick.

One trick with throw-ins is pretending to be going to take the throw, then leaving it for a teammate who ideally has a long walk to get to it.

Taking a long time to take a goal kick always annoys opposing supporters if their team is a goal down.

Curiously, one of the earlier Law changes to speed up goal kicks, can have the opposite effect.

The goal kick was taken from the side the ball it went out, but now it can be taken from anywhere in the goal area.

This means the goalkeeper can legitimately waste time by going to the opposite side.

Occasionally players take a free-kick from the wrong place to get the referee to delay play for a retake.

This was prevalent with throw-ins until the law was changed, awarding the throw-in to the other team.

A lesson to be learned?

Another cautionable act is to kick (or throw) the ball away at a stoppage in play, or holding on to it when the opponents want to get on with the game.

Taking a long time to leave the field when being substituted is also considered to be delaying the restart.

I’m not sure why; the law requires the referee to stop his watch for substitutions, so no playing time is lost.

In their FA Cup tie against Wolves, Oliver Norburn of Shrewsbury, delayed play before taking a corner by reading instructions sent from the bench.

Did it tell him how to take the corner or say, ‘if you score, waste as much time as you can?’