Brighton boss Fabian Hürzeler was scathing of Arsenal‘s perceived timewasting at the Amex Stadium on Wednesday in their Premier League clash. Opta data can tell us how bad it really was.
Fabian Hürzeler knew exactly what he was doing when, ahead of Wednesday’s Premier League clash with Arsenal, he chose not to praise the Gunners’ set-piece effectiveness but instead focused on the time they take from them.
Hürzeler was likely trying to increase pressure on the referee to be mindful of how long Arsenal were taking and, at the same time, giving Brighton fans something to latch onto going into the game.
“There are no clear rules anymore [around] how much time you can spend taking a corner or a throw-in,” the German said in his pre-match press conference. “[We need] a clear rule on how much time you can take for a corner, a free-kick, because no-one recognises it. When Arsenal have a corner and they are leading, sometimes they spend over one minute just to take a corner.”
He added: “Every supporter pays a lot of money to watch our games and should see the same game time. They want to see a football event, not maybe 50 minutes when the ball is in the game and 40 minutes when the game is not running.”
His wider point was arguably fair, and Arsenal do take longer than any other team at corners, though the debate also ended up giving him a nice excuse as he went into full-on deflection mode after Brighton lost – but how prescient were his comments? Was Hürzeler right?
Well, there are a few ways of looking at it.
Firstly, Arsenal’s total delay time before restarting play at the Amex Stadium on Wednesday was 1,851 seconds, the 22nd longest for a team in a single match this season out of a possible 580.
It was also the longest by Arsenal in a league match this term.
30 – Arsenal took 30 minutes and 51 seconds to restart play against Brighton last night, their highest total in a Premier League match this season. Delayed. pic.twitter.com/0v5G18Z6Ri
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) March 5, 2026Furthermore, Arsenal’s delays accounted for 30.6% of overall match time, which is the 11th greatest proportion of any team in 2025-26.
“Only one team tried to play football,” Hürzeler suggested after the match, and looking at those numbers above, his frustration seems justified.
However, there’s much more to it than meets the eye.
There were a lot of delays attributed to Arsenal because of how the match went. Brighton had more shots (11) and committed more fouls (14) than the Gunners, for instance, and the hosts were also shown four times as many yellow cards (4) as Arsenal (1). Given Mikel Arteta’s men would be the ones restarting play after these events, the delay goes against them.
There were 59 delays registered to Arsenal, which was the eighth most for a team in a Premier League game in 2025-26, but many of those were simply down to the simple ebb and flow of a match. Similarly, Arsenal’s 12 goal-kicks was their most in a top-flight game this term – there’s not much they could’ve done about that.
The fact Arsenal’s total number of delays (59) was high obviously links very closely to the overall time attributed to their stoppages, 1,851 seconds as noted before. On average, that translates to 31.4 secs to get the ball back into play from corners, goal kicks, throws and free-kicks – there have been 195 instances of a team taking longer than this in a Premier League match in 2025-26.
Taking all delays into account, Arsenal spent an average of 31.4 seconds to get the ball back into play from corners, goal kicks, throws and free-kicks last night vs Brighton.There have been 195 instances of a team taking longer than this in a Premier League match in 2025-26.
— Opta Analyst (@OptaAnalyst) March 5, 2026Of those 195, Brighton actually account for three. Against Manchester City in August, they averaged 38.7s to restart after a delay; it was 33.7s against Chelsea in September, and 33.2s versus Brentford last month.
In fairness to Hürzeler, his complaints about Arsenal’s delays aren’t completely unfounded. Among all Premier League teams, only five take longer on average to restart play after a delay than they do (30.2s).
Yash Thakur /They are the joint-fifth slowest side at getting the ball back into play from throw-ins (19.6s)…
Yash Thakur /And they take by far the longest over corners, with their 44.5s being 3.2s longer than anyone else, and a whopping 13.6s longer than Chelsea, who restart the quickest at corners.
Yash Thakur /Clearly, the time Arsenal take over corners drags their average up, because when you exclude delays before corners, there are as many as seven Premier League teams who’ve taken longer to restart play this season. But considering the Gunners’ prowess, can you blame them for taking their time?
They’ve found an area in which they excel to a greater degree than any other team, with their 16 goals from corners being three more than anyone else.
Whether they score lots because of the time delay or the delay reflects their meticulousness isn’t easy to say, but it seems reasonable that the two are linked in some way.
We also have to remember that Arsenal, as league leaders, spend a lot of time ahead in matches. As a team with aspirations of winning the title, it’s their prerogative to grind out wins – if they spend 45% of match time winning, why would they rush the ball back into play?
Ithiel Piñero /But coming back specifically to Wednesday’s clash with Brighton, it’s fair to say that, generally – using their average delay (31.4s) as the case in point – Arsenal didn’t exactly use an alarming amount of time when restarting play.
It should also be pointed out that Brighton played a very important role in the framing of Arsenal’s supposed timewasting.
First of all, Brighton have resumed play quicker than all but one Premier League team this term, which will have potentially accentuated any perceived Arsenal timewasting. Hürzeler’s pre-match comments may have had a similar effect, with Brighton fans notably impatient with their visitors on Wednesday.
But on top of that, only against Bournemouth (1,516.9s per game) have teams seen a higher average delay time than against Brighton (1,483.5s) in the Premier League this season. Those sides absolutely play a role in the duration of delays attributed to their opposition; after all, Bournemouth (352) are one of only two teams to commit more fouls than Brighton (351) in 2025-26. If they gave away fewer fouls, their opponents would eat up less time restarting play.
This debate comes hot on the heels of football’s lawmakers, IFAB (International Football Association Board) last week announcing further measures to improve match flow, including the introduction of countdowns to speed up goal-kicks and throw-ins. However, IFAB didn’t make a similar commitment regarding corners.
“Every team will manage and waste time but there has to be a limit, and the limit has to be set by the Premier League. The limit has to be set by the referees,” Hürzeler said after the game. “At the moment, [Arsenal] just do what they want.”
Perhaps there is scope for stricter officiating, but the fact of the matter is, Arsenal aren’t breaking any rules and are doing everything in their power to win the Premier League title.
It wasn’t so long ago that Arsenal were highly appreciated by the neutral but similarly mocked for being fragile and winning nothing.
Maybe they aren’t pretty anymore, but they are also much, much tougher to rattle. The neutrals and purists may not like it, but Arteta seems to have discovered a winning formula that works for Arsenal.
If it ends their 22-year title drought, neither he nor Arsenal fans will care about the perceptions of others.
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Fabian Hürzeler Called Out Arsenal Over Time-Wasting, But Were They Really That Bad? Opta Analyst.
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