Time to scrap goal difference?

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Qwerty

Qwerty

Well-Known Member
Mar 8, 2011
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If Saints win today (<cool>) then we won't be mathematically promoted. Instead we would need to avoid an approximately 0-8 defeat on the last day, with Huddersfield winning by a similar scoreline. Wouldn't it be better to use the Spanish head-to-head system so that we are not waiting until Saturday for this absurd event to not occur? It would make the 6 pointer games even more important, and to me goal difference is not related to how good your team is. And if we do win today, it would give us an extra week to celebrate instead of talking about how many players will have to score hattricks.
 
I like goal difference, as it rewards goals (i.e. exciting football). It's also a fairer representation of a team's performance over an entire season, whereas the head-to-head system is based on just two performances.
 
Agree goal difference rewards good attacking football, many times it has been the difference between promotion and the play offs. Without it Arsenal would go 1-0 up then defend for 90 min oh sorry they do that anyway! Keep goal difference guys it helps keep things interesting for the rest of us!
 
Goal difference kept us in the Prem a couple of times and it favours exciting football. If Huddersfield beat us heavily early in the season, it would hardly be fair if we subsequently spanked all other teams. GD covers the whole season. Head-to-head is just 2 games.
 
Goal difference not related to how good a team is? surely you're not being serious? surely the better the goal difference the better your team has performed? as in more goals scored and or conceded.If you compare our record to hudders then you'll see we have scored 10 more goals and conceded far less resulting in us playing better throughout the season? Basically we deserve to take 2nd if we finish level on points!
 
You may recall that the football League did scrap goal difference some years back (1992-93, when the Premiership started) and went solely on Goals Scored. I think they were expecting more attacking football, thinking on the lines that a team 4-0 down would try and get one in at the other end and if they go down 7-0 trying, wont hurt them.

It didn't work and they resumed using Goal Difference in the 1999-2000 season.
 
It is true it did depend on the number of goals scored to be honest. On that score Saints would still be where they are as the have scored far more than Huddersfield but less than Peterborough. So I guess under the old system we have to be thankful that it wasn't Peterborough that were level on points. However they are not....................................... So Come On You Saints
 
Goal difference is ther best system and 17 goals will never ever ever be pulled back - I'm already celebrating. Just be thankful we still don't have goal average deciding it.
 
Beddytare said:
It is true it did depend on the number of goals scored to be honest. On that score Saints would still be where they are as the have scored far more than Huddersfield but less than Peterborough. So I guess under the old system we have to be thankful that it wasn't Peterborough that were level on points. However they are not....................................... So Come On You Saints
Click to expand...

Peterborough are an interesting example in the argument about goals scored or goal difference. While Posh have scored over 100 goals this season, easily beating our efforts, they have conceded a whopping 75 goals compared to our miserly 37. Surely, having a crap defence should be considered when points are equal shouldn't they?
 
If my memory serves me correctly when they did try it it failed for several reasons. One which someone has already pointed out is that you got a team like Peterborough that can score a 100 + goals but also let in 75 trying to do that. In reality while they may have thrilled their fans they actually got very little out of it because they have to go through the lottery of the playoffs. On the other hand another team on equal points with a say +25 goal difference which is exactly the same as Peterborough is left out in the cold. Yet you could argue who was the better side? The side that had the skill to keep other teams out but also to get a + on the scoring side or the one that had the skill to score a lot of goals but also let nearly as many in.
The second thing that was clear was that points is what got you promoted not goals for. They only came into it if you were level on points at the end of the day. So making sure was the obvious way of doing things so it didn't encourage teams to play a more open game.
The third thing was that teams complained about, that they were not actually gaining anything in the long run by playing more open football. You got exactly the same points whether you won 1.0 or 6.5.
So it was decided in the more natural way of doing things. If you did well your goal difference was the more skillful way of determining things. In other words you had to win more games than lost, draws were of little use to anyone. Am I wrong in thinking that is when they brought in 3 points for a win? I have a feeling that came in earlier. When they brought that in that cut out a lot of negative play. As teams could no longer draw around 15 or 20 games a season with only 5/6 victories to stay up. I exaggerate I know but I think you get the picture.
So to be automatically promoted now it is based on skill level to a degree, you scoring a lot more than you let in.
That in my opinion is the way it should be having witnessed both ways.
 
I agree wholeheartedly with that.

Just think, that we would still have pressure on Saturday without the huge advantage that we currently have over Huddersfield. Could you imagine what would happen if we ended up all square with the same scores for wins, draws and goals etc. It was bad enough at Brentford but I certainly wouldn't enjoy the day as I will on Saturday with us having such a big advantage.
 
Thanks for your views everyone. Didn't expect to have too many in agreement. I am not quite old enough to remember previous experiments, my main problem with GD is that we have to spend all week using words like "effectively" and "realistically" in front of "promoted". But as pointed out the main problem with the head-to head decider is why win 6-0 when you can win 2-0. Anyway I will keep some of my more radical football ideas to myself!
 
There are some good responses here and I must throw my hat in to the debate to say that goal difference is definately the fairest way of sorting positions out. The combination of deciding how many goals a team scores and concedes really gets down to the fundamentals of how a team functions through a season as a unit and is much better than totting up the number of respective wins, then draws, etc or perhaps weighting the results so that away fixtures have more impact. (Although this would probably be in our favour this season!) If I was a Huddersfield fan, I would feel disappointed and as much as I am sympathetic to see another south coast team like Bournemouth in the play-offs, the Yorkshire team have notched up so many more points that anyone else that they deserve to be promoted in my opinion.

It is funny how, in the modern game, high scoring matches are relatively so rare. I think every football fan loves to see their team absolutely tonk an opponent but results of 6-0 are not quite so common as they were when the game first became popular. I am sure that someone can come up with the stats, but I think the record victory was a Scottish match which ended up 36-0. Can't recall who the teams were. I suppose that it is good that the rules evolved too as in the early days there used to be such a thing as a rouge which was equal to half a goal. This was "scored" if the ball went between a stick placed midway between the goal post and the corner flag. That would have made goal difference a bit more interesting! Morgan Schneiderlin would also be quite prolific!
 
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