Shame, but I think the penalty shoot out is a good idea. Makes it more interesting for the fans and gives more players the experience of taking a penalty under pressure.
I will be taking the selective fan view on this one. The Checkatrade Trophy is surely the work of the devil and I have no interest in this result (apart from the colour of the shirts which were far too bright), or indeed the competition until we win it of course.
I suppose the extra points for the penalty win may produce a more certain result in the table. Haven't thought it through properly, but I have a feeling that draws resulting in teams getting single points only may increase the chance of close results in the table, whereas every match results in one team getting more points than the opposition. Making the game hinge solely on the result of the shootout would be unfair as it wouldn't differentiate between a draw and a loss, hence the single point for a draw.
One newspaper is saying 1 point for a draw and an extra point for the penalty win (making the 2 points that Saints quoted).
Did any Saints fans go watch this abortion of a competition? They need a 2x4 upside their head if they did.
I would prefer if they just stopped at 90 and the visiting team got 2 and the home team got 1. Or the team in the lower division gets the extra point otherwise 1 each. But this is fine as well. I mean, the stadiums aren't exactly packed so home pitch means less of an advantage. And we shouldn't assume that Saints U21-ish side is automatically better than a good League One team, and penalize them for not winning. They need to do something to prevent two teams getting the same amount of points because they play so few games in the round. This is as good as any. Still think that the team should be all U21 or at least all U23. The whole EPPP thing and letting the Category Awesome Academy teams play is to encourage development of young players for the National side. You undercut the whole thing if over half the team is not young. They should preferably be English as well I suppose. But like I said on an earlier post, it's probably good for Saints that it is this way, and I don't care about the England national team so I'm not going to complain.
