Every football fan knows the frustration. A goal down, time ticking away on the clock, the opposition make a substitution, the player involved is at the farthest part of the pitch from the dugout. He turns, applauds the visiting fans for longer than their meagre urgings really deserve.

Then he starts to move, slowly of course, possibly walking backwards. This might raise the ire of an opposing player – the referee may notice, point at his watch, gesture for him to hurry up, so he breaks into a trot – but it is not really a trot; the pace has not increased. If he is feeling particularly bold, he will try for a handshake with the official. He may be booked but that only wastes more time in arguments and posturing. By the time he is off the pitch and the replacement has come on, a minute or more has evaporated – and everyone knows it is highly unlikely the full amount will be added on at the end.

Why do we put up with it? If the watch was stopped the moment the ball was out of play this type of behaviour would soon die out.

Of course, goalkeepers are the prime exponents of this dark art (it does not get much better/worse than this effort from Jens Lehmann) but why is it allowed to be an issue? Referees get enough stick. Do they really need the abuse for adding on too little/too much time at the end of a match?

How can they reasonably be expected to keep their eyes on 22 players, run approximately seven miles a match and accurately measure how much time has been wasted? Assistants offer a helping hand – with fourth officials now noting down stoppages of play – but it is clearly a broken system. How often is there more than two minutes added on in the first half, regardless of what may have occurred?

Over the last three Premier League seasons the ball has been in play on average for 55 minutes 52 seconds, 56 minutes 22 seconds and 56 minutes 34 seconds respectively. That means over a third of the running time is lost in one way or another.

This season in the Premier League the most the ball was in play was in Swansea 1-3 Tottenham and that was for 67 minutes 37 seconds. At the other end Stoke fans may have enjoyed beating Aston Villa 2-1 but they saw only 40 minutes and 50 seconds of actual football in what our reporter called "a dreadful game" that was "pockmarked by errors" – not exactly value for money.

As the rules stand, time is not supposed to be added when the ball is out of play for throws, corners, goal-kicks etc, unless players are wasting time. But it should be. It would encourage teams to keep the ball in play, encourage quicker restarts and discourage time-wasting.

At the top level players wages are skyrocketing, paid for through increased ticket prices and massive TV deals. If only 55 minutes of football is being played a third of the ticket price is being paid to watch players dilly-dallying. If a season ticket is costing you £500, nearly £200 of that is spent to watch players fetch the ball, argue with the referee or simply stand around.

So why not put someone in the crowd with a button which stops and starts the clock – high-tech stuff – visible to all in the stadium, thus removing any doubt about how much time is left. When the clock has reached 90 minutes the game will end at the next natural stoppage in play (an exception would have to be made for a penalty conceded). That way there will be no more of this, or this.

Introducing a stop-the-clock system would increase the value to spectators but also remove the lingering sense of injustice caused by the current opaque method by which additional time is calculated.

A timely change or are you a big fan of a spot of 'Fergie time'? Let us know below the line.