The Play-offs are a Positive Thing

[Revolution]

I like this and the added incentive/fairness it brings to finishing as high as possible, presumably the loser of 1st game has home advantage against the winner of 2nd game?

Yes, that's right.

 

[Silent Blade]

I’ve never seen us score at Wembley (was overseas for the Hull game) and I won’t be attending as I’m still overseas so I feel like my bad luck vibes will at least be out of the equation.

What about this one?

 

[BushBlade]

The initial excuse for the playoffs was to reduce the size of the top division from 22 to 20 clubs. They did this by relegating 3 and promoting 2 but using the playoffs to allow for extra movement. After 2 seasons of that they kept them but just used promoted teams.

The best playoff format would be:

3 at home to 4. Winner in final
5 at home to 6. Loser out

Loser of 1st game plays winner of 2nd game. Winner in final.

This format ensures that there is an advantage to finishing 3rd rather than 4th, and so on.

Why not 3rd straight in final, 6 v 5, winner plays 4 for a place in final?

 

[Jim Chimmerney]

The play-offs would still be a fantastic achievement if we make them, albiet possibly a disappointment from where we are now.

As others have said, would I like to go up that way, absolutely, would I want to take that chance and have another disappointment, probably not ! As we've discussed many times before though, the system is flawed, we may just miss out on auto, and face a team on the up who scrape into 6th on the final day and a full season's work is thrown away for a couple of games where we are not necessarily at our best.

 

[Revolution]

Why not 3rd straight in final, 6 v 5, winner plays 4 for a place in final?

you could do that I suppose. Prefer the double chance method of my system, plus it's 3 games so more palatable for tv.

 

[Ranmoorblade]

We all know how we have felt about the play-offs in the past, you only have to read this board to see. We fear the worst, we fear the unpredictable, we fear the opposition, we fear the penalties!

However, that was then and this is now. We have to change our thinking on this. We should be good enough to reach them this season (at worst), so we have to go in with a more positive outlook ie its an opportunity to succeed. If we fear the worst, then its more likely to happen.

So I, for one, am hoping we get to the playoffs because it will give me the chance to see my beloved Blades finally win at Wembley. Any other reasons to look forward to them?

It’s got nothing to do with how you or I feel it’s how the players, manager and coaches feel. I have every confidence that they would be confident and give it their best. I’m hoping for automatics though.

 

[Houston_Blade]

What about this one?

Ah yeah, forgot about that game. I was 8 and the only thing I remember was Waddles free kick and Kelly being too far off his line!

I was driven to Wembley that day and for the Palace game in a Bentley with someone my dad knew through work. Proper nice car.

 

[GymClassHero]

would a million % prefer to go up in auto's ,
would be great at Stoke , sunny day and Billy score in front of us the winner that sends us up and sends us fans balmy!
( Stoke could give us 5-6k tickets , which no reason they couldn't /woudn't as will have nothing to play for )

having said that if we did win a PO final it would feel very special and very possible with CWAK in charge
finally rid the demons and seeing CW run down the touchline at Wembley as Billy scores the 92nd min winner would be pretty special !

That's the stuff dream's are made of!

 

[Davalon]

I'd have snatched your hand off for 6th spot at the start of the season, and part of me might still do with it being so close.

A good or bad run of just a few games now could either see you looking good for autos or out of the play offs.

That said you've got to believe both logically and by the law of averages, that we'd have a good shot of winning them.

Now out front as having the worst playoff record of any English club, surely we must be due, and we have the tools to do it too.

The negativity is understandable but surely this club is fucking due a celebration at Wembley.

 

[SwissBlade]

We all know how we have felt about the play-offs in the past, you only have to read this board to see. We fear the worst, we fear the unpredictable, we fear the opposition, we fear the penalties!

However, that was then and this is now. We have to change our thinking on this. We should be good enough to reach them this season (at worst), so we have to go in with a more positive outlook ie its an opportunity to succeed. If we fear the worst, then its more likely to happen.

So I, for one, am hoping we get to the playoffs because it will give me the chance to see my beloved Blades finally win at Wembley. Any other reasons to look forward to them?

We're 2nd in the League now. Until such time its impossible to make the automatic slots, then the only thing we need to concern ourselves with is whether we're 1st or 2nd.

2 years ago there were threads similar to yours and we were chasing or in the top slot. I said at the time, we should only look forward, only look at chasing down those above us. Don't worry about whats behind us.

Right now, we're as strong as we have been all season. Following a little bit of a strange start to December where (and i can't remember exactly how many points we were behind) we dropped away and Norwich and Leeds took a commanding lead over us. We were down at the lower end of the play offs.

An extremely good return over xmas and new year, some good results in Jan and Feb and perhaps our best January Window in the last few years, we've got ourselves into 2nd place.

On Saturday we were able to rest a couple of players whilst we had to rearrange the furniture at the back, but we put in an extremely convincing performance and a hell of a scoreline.

We'll have slip ups and we'll drop some points, but we have to keep that focus - The only place to look and consider right now is chasing down Norwich in 1st place.