Automatic Promotion or Play-Off Victory ?

[Jim Chimmerney]

I, possibly presumptuously, mentioned in another thread that most fans would take a guaranteed play-off win over going up in 2nd place so let's put it to the test.

If you could GUARANTEE that a place in the play-offs would result in a win at Wembley and promotion, would you prefer to experience the joy of a Wembley win and the emotion of the day over finishing in 2nd place ? I appreciate it's not the same if you know you're going to win but you get my point.

 

[DazBlade88]

I think it would be a better feeling to win the playoffs than finish second, especially after all the failures we've had.

After never even seeing us score at a neutral venue, I just want to experience what I've witnessed other fans do against us in the other 4 finals. One day, I want to go so f*cking mental celebrating a GOAL, never mind a win in a game like that. We have to do it in the end, surely.

 

[Grecian2000]

Automatic.

I have no time for the whole process of the play-offs. Bullshit, money making and the ultimate celebration of mediocrity. Scrap them now and let the best teams prosper.

 

[DazBlade88]

Automatic.

I have no time for the whole process of the play-offs. Bullshit, money making and the ultimate celebration of mediocrity. Scrap them now and let the best teams prosper.

Even though I would prefer the feeling of going up through the playoffs because of the pure emotion - this is absolutely spot on and I agree that they should be scrapped.

It's ridiculous that a team can finish 15-20 points behind another and start on a level playing field for promotion in a 2 legged affair.

 

[Kenilworth]

The only guarantee we have is that we will not win a play off final or score in one.
Look at the injuries and striker choices we have now and tell me I am wrong.
Looks the same as last season to me.

 

[JohnDenver]

I think it would be a better feeling to win the playoffs than finish second, especially after all the failures we've had.

Trouble with that is, how many of us will bother turning up this time to see it?

I'd like to see us win the league. First thing we'll have won outright in my memory.

 

[Darren]

Automatic.

I have no time for the whole process of the play-offs. Bullshit, money making and the ultimate celebration of mediocrity. Scrap them now and let the best teams prosper.

This is old ground and I, like you, a purist and would prefer the top 3 teams to get promoted. However, it seems the play offs are here to stay given the money involved, so for me a fair an equitable system would be:

1. 5th v 6th at 5th's ground. Extra time to be played if drawing after 90 mins. If drawing after extra time, 5th goes through.
2. Winner of 1 v 4th at 4th's ground. Extra time to be played if drawing after 90 mins. If drawing after extra time, 4th goes through.
3. Winner of 2 v 3rd at Wembley. No extra time. If drawing after 90 mins, 3rd is promoted.

 

[SouthEssexBlade]

Never been a fan of the play-off system, never will be. The whole point of a league system is to find out who is the best over a given period. The play-off totally negates that and makes it irrelevant. Give the FA Cup back the status it always had and you can have your end of season knockout, winner takes all excitement right there. Leave the league to being about the best two/three teams over a long slog:

'O, but it extends the season for so many clubs and removes most of those meaningless end of season games!'

Bollocks, it's about the money and providing games to pay for the new Wembley. If you wanted to remove meaningless fixtures, make it a straight 5 up and 5 down!

And if you want a fairer system for play-offs, 3rd place straight to the final, others weighted according to final points tally so if 4th play 6th they get a goal for every 3 points more than the 6th placed club. So if they had 6 points more, they start the play-off with a 2-0 lead!

As for us! I think we're doomed never to be successful in a play-off. Automatic or grief are the options!

 

[Jim Chimmerney]

Looks like this has now been turned into an anti play off vote rather than the original point

 

[Grecian2000]

Good work Dazzler.
Quite like that, except I wouldn't have the "final" at Wembley. I just don't get that being as bad as 6th can get you a place at Wembley. Also a full Old Trafford is far superior than a 3/4 full Wembley (to be honest an empty OT is better!).

 

[Grecian2000]

Looks like this has now been turned into an anti play off vote rather than the original point

Aren't the two intrinsically linked? As I have no time for the play-offs it is obvious I am going to prefer to go up automatically and not be arsed with the Mediocrity Bowl.
If you had asked would I prefer to play at Wembley in an FA Cup final or get promoted then I would be there at Wembley like a shot!

 

[Balham]

My preference would be

Champions
Play Off Winners (this once only, to get the monkey off our backs)
Second (always the bridesmaids and all that)

I fully subscribe to the view that playoffs are a pointless extension to the season designed to punish the team which came closest to winning promotion while raising money for Sky/the FA.

If they're going to continue with them then Darren's suggestion would be close to my preference, with the proviso that all the games are played within a week ie 5th v 6th on Monday, 4th v winners on Wednesday with the final 3rd v winners game on the Saturday to properly weight against the lower placed teams.

 

[LoughboroBlade]

If it could be guaranteed, the playoffs certainly - for the simple reason that we'd get the monkey off our back on failing in these big neutral-venue one-off games. If we go up automatically, we'd just have the same sense of doom the next time this comes up in the Championship - a playoff final win this year, as improbable as that is, would finally exorcise those demons. .

 

[UnitedBlade]

Purely on the basis of getting the maximum time to try and build a side that will stay up in the championship, we need the season to end successfully on April 27.

There is a lot of releasing players and bringing in new players to do.

I would keep only 13 of our current 29 man squad (a lot of these being youngsters)

Big job this summer.

 

[raul]

Looks like this has now been turned into an anti play off vote rather than the original point

Are you suggesting that the ast majority of people on the forum are incapable of understanding a simple question Fleety?

Poor form.......

 

[GRUMPY BLADE]

This is old ground and I, like you, a purist and would prefer the top 3 teams to get promoted. However, it seems the play offs are here to stay given the money involved, so for me a fair an equitable system would be:

1. 5th v 6th at 5th's ground. Extra time to be played if drawing after 90 mins. If drawing after extra time, 5th goes through.
2. Winner of 1 v 4th at 4th's ground. Extra time to be played if drawing after 90 mins. If drawing after extra time, 4th goes through.
3. Winner of 2 v 3rd at Wembley. No extra time. If drawing after 90 mins, 3rd is promoted.

All those draws giving wins, Danny's yer boy for that.

 

[Darren]

My preference would be

Champions
Play Off Winners (this once only, to get the monkey off our backs)
Second (always the bridesmaids and all that)

I fully subscribe to the view that playoffs are a pointless extension to the season designed to punish the team which came closest to winning promotion while raising money for Sky/the FA.

If they're going to continue with them then Darren's suggestion would be close to my preference, with the proviso that all the games are played within a week ie 5th v 6th on Monday, 4th v winners on Wednesday with the final 3rd v winners game on the Saturday to properly weight against the lower placed teams.

Good call, I also thing that would add to the excitement. Say the 6th got through to the final, the narrative would be "can 6th place team x, playing their 3rd game in week trimuph against all the odds against 3rd place team Y who only need a draw". Shades of the old FA Cup giant killing.

 

[Sothall_Blade]

Never been a fan of the play-off system, never will be. The whole point of a league system is to find out who is the best over a given period. The play-off totally negates that and makes it irrelevant. Give the FA Cup back the status it always had and you can have your end of season knockout, winner takes all excitement right there. Leave the league to being about the best two/three teams over a long slog:

'O, but it extends the season for so many clubs and removes most of those meaningless end of season games!'

Bollocks, it's about the money and providing games to pay for the new Wembley. If you wanted to remove meaningless fixtures, make it a straight 5 up and 5 down!

And if you want a fairer system for play-offs, 3rd place straight to the final, others weighted according to final points tally so if 4th play 6th they get a goal for every 3 points more than the 6th placed club. So if they had 6 points more, they start the play-off with a 2-0 lead!

As for us! I think we're doomed never to be successful in a play-off. Automatic or grief are the options!

I agree with 5 up, 5 down throughout the league system.
It would ensure that most teams have an interest until the end of the season.
It would also help to spread the wealth better as more teams would benefit from parachute payments.
Creating fixtures for Wembley isn't the Premier League or the Football League's problem.

 

[ZoneManWilf]

Automatic.

Utterly fed up with the playoffs.

 

[Latters]

Automatic for me. The outcome is the same but it's at least a couple of hundred quid cheaper seeing as I always feel compelled to go to the home leg of the semi then end up at Wembley.

Having said that, I'm determined not to go this year if we end up there.

 

[EccyBlade]

Champions
Play Off Winners
Second

That would be the same for me

1. 5th v 6th at 5th's ground. Extra time to be played if drawing after 90 mins. If drawing after extra time, 5th goes through.
2. Winner of 1 v 4th at 4th's ground. Extra time to be played if drawing after 90 mins. If drawing after extra time, 4th goes through.
3. Winner of 2 v 3rd at Wembley. No extra time. If drawing after 90 mins, 3rd is promoted.

Think that's a good idea personally but whatever replaces the play-offs needs to have a better weighting system than the current one. Wembley is great for the lower league teams as a 'day out' and whilst it will not be full it still provides the chance to go for some teams, such as us, that see cup finals many years down the road.

Fully understand the idea of a play-off system to add that excitement, just needs a better system in place

 

[ThatJa]

If, they got rid of the Play Offs, it would destroy football. Teams in 10th place, are 4-5 points behind 6th place so still have something to fight for, however they could be 15 points behind 2nd, and at this point in the season they have nothing to play for, so if they're playing anyone in the promotion mix up its not in their best interest to win.

The play offs is a very good system, i think us being Blades, we just naturally don't like them, because we don't win them.

 

[Darren]

If, they got rid of the Play Offs, it would destroy football. Teams in 10th place, are 4-5 points behind 6th place so still have something to fight for, however they could be 15 points behind 2nd, and at this point in the season they have nothing to play for, so if they're playing anyone in the promotion mix up its not in their best interest to win.

The play offs is a very good system, i think us being Blades, we just naturally don't like them, because we don't win them.

No, we don't like them because its vastly unfair that a team that, over 46 games has proved it is the 3rd best team in the league amd quite a bit better than the team in 6th, can lose a promotion place to that team via a mini cup tournament at the end of the season.

As I say, we we must have them, it's only fair that the teams finishing lower should be handicapped. I wouldn't be moaning that was unfair if United qualified by finishing 5th or 6th (as we did in 1997 and 1998) and had that handicap.

 

[ThatJa]

But if you say its unfair that a team finishing 6th gets the same chance as a team finishing 3rd, then as the season suggests, 3rd should beat them anyway. The rules have been the same since the start of the season, all 24 teams knew that would happen, so i don't see an excuse for the play offs, if your a manager and you have a problem with the play offs, you should try to get automatic, if not, you have a second chance via the play offs.

At the moment, in league one no club in 3rd-6th is better than any, so if Play Offs started now, i'd say it was fairly equal.

 

[Darren]

But if you say its unfair that a team finishing 6th gets the same chance as a team finishing 3rd, then as the season suggests, 3rd should beat them anyway. The rules have been the same since the start of the season, all 24 teams knew that would happen, so i don't see an excuse for the play offs, if your a manager and you have a problem with the play offs, you should try to get automatic, if not, you have a second chance via the play offs.

At the moment, in league one no club in 3rd-6th is better than any, so if Play Offs started now, i'd say it was fairly equal.

Just because everyone knew what the rules were before the season started doesn't make the rules fair. If the League decided before the start of a season that any team playing in red would only get two points for a win, that wouldn't be fair would it, even though the red teams knew that was the rule before they played a game.

The whole point of a league system is by each team playing each other home and away to provide a ranking of merit. Logic dictates that those at the top of the merit table should be rewarded. Rewarding the 6th placed team and not the 3rd is crazy

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

The whole point of a league system is by each team playing each other home and away to provide a ranking of merit. Logic dictates that those at the top of the merit table should be rewarded. Rewarding the 6th placed team and not the 3rd is crazy

The best teams are rewarded. The top two go up automatically but there has to be a cut off point somewhere.

I don't fully agree with the concept of the play offs but I think it helps if you think of it that the best two teams go up and then everybody else is just the best of the rest - the teams that failed to finish 1st or 2nd.

 

[Darren]

The best teams are rewarded. The top two go up automatically but there has to be a cut off point somewhere.

I don't fully agree with the concept of the play offs but I think it helps if you think of it that the best two teams go up and then everybody else is just the best of the rest - the teams that failed to finish 1st or 2nd.

by that logic if 3-24 is the "best of the rest", you might as well have only 22 teams playing off to see who is relegated

 

[Grecian2000]

If, they got rid of the Play Offs, it would destroy football.

Aye, course it would, God knows how it survived for a mere 100+ years before mediocrity and money making took over.

 

[axel smeets]

Automatic every time. Why would you fork out an extra £150 + if you don't need to?

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

Automatic every time. Why would you fork out an extra £150 + if you don't need to?

That's cheap. I'd spend more than £150 on nosebag and ale across the 3 extra matches.