Only time will tell. Just been looking at the last 9 playoffs and the position of the teams who contested them. Amazingly the team finishing 4th in the table have NOT won it once in those nine contests! 3rd have won it 5 times, 5th twice and 6th also twice. The team finishing 3rd has been in the final 7 times, 5th 6 times, 4th 3 times, and 6th twice. It really is a lottery.
Brighton play on the Friday at Huddersfield. But Ipswich are at Watford later on Saturday afternoon. I think we need to be playing our strongest team until we are definitely in the play offs, though Arry doen't look like he knows what that is yet. I hope Clint is back, because Dunne needs a long rest. Austin, Krancjar, and Onouha look to all need more game time to hopefully be in top shape for the Play-Offs, if we make them. So I hope all 3 can play a decent part Saturday, as well as Clint and Barton.
It is a lottery, but it is always sensible, to maximise your chances Keep players under wraps, play them in matches to build confidence, get a run going, make sure we doing get any players banned, try and get home advantage. This is performance manipulation...take care of the details, and often it takes care of the bigger picture
So 3rd v 6th comes out 7 to 2 in favour of 3rd place. I think it's important that do all we can to finish 3rd. Playing at home in the 2nd leg has to be an advantage.
Trying to figure out why 4th place teams despite having the advantage you mention has lost 3-6 in semi-final contests with 5th placed teams and on the 3 occasions they won, they lost in the final! Any theories out there?
I'm not sure that's what Twins evidence is pointing to per se, Strolls. Its not so much the actual position in the table that helps, in and of itself, nor home advantage in the second leg. Rather, the team that finishes third is, in theory at least, simply the best of the four teams as they've finished higher in the league. On that basis alone it would make sense that the 3rd placed team wins more PO tournaments than the rest.
It IS important that we finish third. That way I avoid having to travel to the Bush for a midweek game! My view is that Charlie should start both games with BZ replacing him on the hour mark.
3 of the teams are on 64 points, 2 of them play before us, we are in if they don't get the result on Friday. It won't then matter what Ipswich do on Saturday.
Then you'd have to have about 15 games go 100% against us. I'm no betting man but wouldn't you get 6 or maybe even 7 figures if you placed an accumulator on that?
The entire 18 years of the playoffs gives a figure of 3rd win it 7 times 4th once 5th 6 times 6th 4 times. On that basis if we can't get third lets settle for fifth!
There was a time that one dressing roomwon 9 games on the trot at the mill stad....until the other side won. Its meaningless.
With three teams on 64 points there's every chance that one of them will be 100% for the last four games and end up on 76. That means we need at 4 points to be sure of the play off's (unless there's some weird configuration of games I'm not aware of). That's still something of an ask for a team with such inconsistent form in the last month or so, particularly with 3 of 4 away from home. If we lose both the weekend's games we'll likely be under real pressure. Will HR be able to resist going ultra-defensive? On the evidence of this season I doubt it somehow and as result I fully expect to see Zamora start up front in at least one game with the 10 others rarely crossing the halfway line.
It doesn't matter if one of them do, two out of the 3 have to get maximum points to push us to 7th as well as us losing all games plus the teams inbetween getting enough points
I still think the play-offs is a terrible idea. It seems ridiculous to me that a team finishing 4th in any division could be promoted at the expense of the team finishing 3rd, plus have an ill-deserved day at Wembley. The points gap between those two teams at the end of the season proper could easily be 10+ points. You can argue that if QPR finish 4th, 5th or 6th and win the play-off final I'd take it and be a hypocrite, and perhaps you'd be right. But you can only play to the rules as currently laid down. Of course it's all about coin, generates fan excitement etc., but that doesn't make it totally fair. I think it makes a mockery of the preceding 46 matches.
Know what? For a big chunk of the game on Saturday I actually enjoyed watching QPR. I'm beyond caring who plays and which play off position we end up in (if any), as long as we can have some entertainment and fun.
I love it, I'd rather see the PL decided like that, 16 team league and the top 6 go into the playoffs but play a 3 game series and a 5 game series for the final. The NHL season has 16 teams go into the playoffs and thats after an 82 game season and the flyers play the rangers for up to 7 games so now I can safely say I want the rangers to lose the next 4 games! The thing I don't like about the FL playoffs is that 1 wrong decision by the ref can cost a team their season.
I disagree with you mate. I can remember when a teams season could be over with 2 months of the season to go. Playoffs were a fantastic idea.
