Ok so its Whu and The Pool - There has been a lot of negativity regarding Sam and The Clydesdales - Dodgy Brothers etc etc but surely isnt it right that the top three go through especially the divide between 3rd and 4th cant we be gracious and wish them the best ??
There's no doubt that West Ham deserve to go up. I'm sure the playoff thing makes sense to somebody but in the interests of fairness surely the top three, the three best teams, should be rewarded appropriately? Especially in situations like this season with West Ham being in the race for automatic the whole way.
hoping for a blackpool win as can't see them surviving the prem. Would also like to see West Ham suffer for the overspending this season. screw justice, I'm sure we'll have many injustices by the refs against the big clubs next season
I want a Blackpool win for the two reasons above and for the fact that I drunkenly put a tenner on them to get promoted after they destroyed us at Bloomfield Road
Blackpool for me - reasons (in order of priority): Blackpool play more attractive football (IMO) Holloway makes me laugh and his insane utterings deserve the maximum exposure to cheer me up. My wife was brought up in Blackpool, so I have to keep in with the 'in laws' Blackpool are more likely to end up below us (IMO) and thereby help shield us from instant relegation. Sadly I think the odds favour WHU
I know the top three should go up automatically, but the playoffs make for excellent excitement, even for the neutral. I was even thinking, last night, that the Premier League could have a playoff, between the third to sixth teams, for the right for two, to get into the Champions League. That would cause mayhem..! Just what the PL needs.
I'd prefer Blackpool to go up - really enjoyed my trip up there despite the thrashing. West Ham will convincingly win the league next season if they don't go up anyway, IMO.
Not sure about that if they don't go up they will have money troubles. may need to streamline their huge squad.
Don't see how the team that finishes 3rd can have any complaints about having to enter the play-offs. They had the opportunity to finish in the top 2 and secure automatic promotion, but weren't good enough.
If I was a Saint [God forbid ] I would have said those exact words. West Ham won the two league fixtures 4-0 and 4-1 so the odds are in their favour it would seem. On the other hand, Blackpool are past masters at winning Play-Off finals, having done so in all three divisions of the Football League!
This makes perfect sense from a sporting perspective. However, from another sporting perspective, it doesn't. The existence of the play-offs keeps teams interested right down the table. This has a knock on effect on both promotion and relegation battles as there are considerably fewer "nothing" games. I believe I am right in saying that there was a 100% acceptance of the original proposal from the League clubs and I can see why.
Don't care about fairness...I only want what's best for Saints. Global warming...how would it affect Saints? Vesuvius erupts...does it affect Saints? Nuclear attack on Manchester...will our fixture against United be moved? Think WHU would do better in the PL than Blackpool, so therefore it is obviously the correct result for Blackpool to be promoted.
At this time there are only two teams that deserve to go up and they are Reading and Saints. The rest including WH are failures as they weren't good enough to earn promotion. It doesn't matter that WH finished ten points clear of Birmingham, they could have been twenty points ahead it makes no difference because they were two behind a promotion place. It's not unjust or unfair, they simply haven't been good enough. But now they get another chance, a chance to make up for their shortcomings by being in the playoffs. The team that wins the final will go up with us and Reading although obviously, not as convincingly (a sort of back door route for failures).
This happens in some countries like Belgium, where the league splits after 30 games into a weird system. The top six play for the title/European spots, the 7th-14th placed clubs play two four-teamed mini-leagues, the two winners play a play-off and the winner of that plays a team out of the top six for a Europa League spot. The bottom two play their own five-legged play off between each other, the loser goes down and the winner goes into yet another play-off with three teams from the Belgian Second Division, where the winner goes up. And if you think that's complicated, wait until I explain how the Belgian second division works. Anyway, the Football League play-offs might mean that a team that didn't come third gets to go up. But no one said football was fair. The problem is that without them half the league would find that their season is over by Christmas, out of the promotion and relegation picture. So it keeps the league a lot more interesting.
But we have struggled far more against Blackpool this season than WHAM so why want a team who has thrashed us to get promoted?
Easily one of the most confusing European leagues You forgot to mention that at the split, each team's points are halved and rounded up to the nearest integer (for no apparent reason?!)
