Looking at the Premier League and Championship. I think that in the Championship 1st and 2nd go up automatically as now. 3rd would then play the winners of a 4th and 5th play off. The winners of that should play the 3rd from bottom team in the Premiership and the winner of that game would be in the Premier League for the following season. I think a similar system operates in Scotland. I feel it still keeps the end of season games interesting but gives the Prem Team a chance to stay up. Your thoughts?
Don't really see any need for this. If you're one of the three worst teams in the league you deserve to go down and don't deserve a second chance.
It was the way the play-offs started but after two years they altered it to the current format. Charlton stayed up the first season and Chelsea were relegated the second season...
What the **** are you on about 54? I am feeling disoriented anyway, but this has done my equilibrium no good at all. Some kind of fix for losers not to have to lose? Bit nanny state......
I don't like the play-offs Period. Surely the point of the league is how you perform over the whole season not just in the knockout stage at the end. This year Cardiff could go up instead of West Ham when WH are 11 pts above them..just unfair really, just another money making scheme detracting game.
It's worse in non-league, last year my local team Dulwich Hamlet finished 5th and played Bognor who finished 2nd 31 points ahead of them, Dulwich won 3-1 away (they only play one match) but lost in the final 4-3 aet after being 3-1 up going into injury time!...
True but every team knows the rules going into the season. If it was simply top three go up the last couple of months would be meaningless for half the teams in the league. The playoffs give all the teams in the top half something to play for.
Hmmmm so a team who has had a very poor season has the chance to stay up over a team that may have finished 3rd and had a very good season, in a lottery type game thats massivley unfair, as even though the team has finished 3rd Bottom, the gulf between Premiership Teams and Championship teams is massive......I bet you any money 8 times out of 10 the team in 3rd bottom would stay up, beating the team that won the playoff lottery.
Apart from the prestige and finishing as High as possible, as said just another money making scheme detracting from football.
I don't see how five exciting games at the end of the season in each division detracts from anything.
I think regardless of the purist's arguments above the play-offs are here to stay and are just about the right format. They give many teams something to play for in the last ten games which would often be meaningless boring games...
It detracts because the whole season you play to finish up as high as possible in the league but at the end of the day there is not difference from 3rd -6th. It detracts because even if I'm 3rd in the league by 20 pts to 6th, the 6th place team can still get promoted. It detracts because you can play well all season and just get pipped at the post for an automatic promotion and yet have it all come down to one game, which as we all know in any one game it can go either way. While your right it creates an exciting end to the season but detracts from the rest of it, might as well play for 6th as well as 3rd..
