Indulge in too much gamesmanship
Take for example throw-ins. How often do we see an attacking throw- in being taken 10 yards from the corner flag when the ball went out very close to the flag?
Very important , especially to teams like Boro who build much of their attacking game on long throws.
The angle into the penalty area for the throw-in is vital and an angled trajectory rather than a flat one gives a significant advantage.
Refs, rather than being seen to be fussy and create even more delays, seem to turn a blind eye.
The laws of the game over the years have been amended and that does not always help the issue of time-wasting.
Players having to leave the field for treatment was supposed to assist as players would be less likely to feign injury merely to delay restarts.
That has not been entirely successful and the down side is teams can be significantly disadvantaged by being reduced in number - annoyingly when they were the victims of foul play against them.
Giving goalkeepers the opportunity to choose which side to take goal kicks from has not helped either, it just gives them an opportunity to waste more time.
By far, though, one of the most annoying and calculated delays in games are substitutions.
We tire of watching a subbed player dawdling from the furthest corner of the pitch, where he just happened to be prior to the board going up, shaking hands with all and sundry, acknowledging the crowd and walking off as slowly as possible.
One day we might see a referee issue a yellow card, possibly a second yellow for this blatant act of unsporting behaviour,
I will not hold my breath on that one, though.