As I'm sitting here in the sun on my day off watching the IPL ( Come on the double R's).....I've got to thinking if the play offs could be made fairer Seems that the only advantage we and Derby had in finishing 3rd and 4th was home advantage in the second leg (even though both teams won it is debatable if it's that much of an advantage). So wouldn't it be fairer if (as the IPL do to get the winner) if...... 3rd played 4th/ 5th played 6th Winner of 3rd v 4th goes through to the final/ loser has a second bite of the cherry to play the winner of 5th v 6th to get the other finalist. (I hope that makes sense). Just seems to me a bit more advantage then in finishing in top 4.....any thoughts ??
I like that method Staines, only downside is one of the teams in the final will have had an extra midweek game to get to the final and not much preparation time. Of course the best method (this year only) is to award promotion automatically to the 4th placed team!
I think that's better, you could also change it to a 3 match series where the higher seed has 2 home games and all games are decided, even to pens. Trouble is both ways mean even more games
You are of course totally right Pete, the 3rd place finisher should rightly be the team to gain promotion. But in these 'TV Money' run times, I think the league will forever pander to the 'armchair' general football fan.
I think 3rd going straight up is the fairest but one argument against it is that the team finishing in 3rd isn't always the team that would do well in the premier league. Often, teams who at first struggle to find their feet and then come good to get into the playoffs would have a better crack at the EPL. I think that's the case with us. I think we would do better than Derby to stay up but who knows!
Trouble is the season is over in march for a lot of clubs if the top 3 go up. Clubs down to 10th were still in with a chance to go up with 2 games left.
Of course, if you really want to be a dinosaur then there would only be two going up as was the case until 1973 (interestingly QPR were one of the last two to go up before the change). But let's face it, even us brontosauruses must be able to see the value in the play-offs as it keeps things interesting for around 50% of clubs until very late in the season. I quite liked the format where the 3rd from bottom of the league above were included.
If there was enough time re fixtures then I would make a mini league of four with 3rd getting their first two matches at home 5th and 6th teams only get one home match 4th gets their first match at home and their last 3 days between each set of fixtures 3rd v 6th 4th v 5th 3rd v 4th 6th v 5th 5th v 3rd 4th v 6th No wembley of course but it's straight league football and bollocks to the FA and cup type football. You win this mini league you deserve promotion
I was thinking about this the other day - I do like the current system, and the reason that it works so well is that it really does make the season last longer for more teams. I wondered if it might apply equally to the PL so that the teams that finish in 18th, 17th, 16th and 15th in the PL have their own playoff to see who goes down! Now that I would watch!
One day at Wembley for all four teams in a Round Robin competition. 30 Minute games straight to penalties if equal. Unlimited substitutions. Toying with the idea of two five-a-side games played across the pitch simultaneously, although that may be a step to far. Or 6th plays 5th at 5th's ground. Then the winner plays 4th at 4th's ground. The winner of that goes to Wembley to play 3rd.
Love the play-offs so wouldn't change them. Football's not fair, and that's part of what makes it so bloody beautiful.
The Scottish Premier play-offs are even worse. 4th plays 3rd over two legs, the winner then plays 2nd over two legs and the winner of that plays the team 11th in the SPL over two legs. It's worked out as Hamilton v Hibernian this year but you could have the 4th placed team playing 6 games compared to the 11th placed team playing 2 games if the 4th placed team won through. I think ours is just about right...
3rd place should go straight to play off final. 6th then travel away to 5th in a one off match all the way to pens if needed. The winner of that then travels to 4th in another one off match. Winner of that plays 3rd in the final. That way the season is still alive right to the last game and there is an advantage to finishing higher up.
