How to guarantee that you'll lose in the playoffs

Mark Pedlar":36wh7kiv said:

Wearing stripes would appear ro be a good indicator.

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Both of Argyle's unsuccessful play-off campaigns came when we had striped kits...

Correction: all three of our unsuccessful play-off campaigns was a striped year! I was forgetting the Wycombe debacle.

In fact, the year we lost to Burnley we actually ditched our kit in between legs, but went from one striped kit to another :facepalm:

This is a really interesting analysis, much more interesting than reading all the petty arguments on here.
I hope they get rid of the EFL trophy, both because of the moral stand point of playing u21 sides (which I think is a bit of an insult), and because 50 games a season across the three main competitions is plenty which your data confirms. Also the trophy has no real status to it. I know there have been some big attendances for the final at Wembley but I’m not sure I’d even bother going if we got to the final.

The fact that the season will be squeezed into a shorter timeframe this season would provide a good excuse for scrapping it. I know there is reasonable prize money attached to it but not enough to risk potential promotion to the championship. Crowds for that tournament would also likely to be even less this year with fans having to payout for league games over a shorter period too.

I think that this year is a good reason to scrap the play offs altogether. It was brought in to balance the leagues,and it was then realised that it can make more money,which is good for lower league teams,but when some teams that finish seventh, several points behind the final automatic promotion spot,and get promoted,it truly shows that it is a lottery. If a team cannot finish in the top three,then I think that they do not deserve to be promoted,and that includes Argyle.

That’s a fair point and has always been a criticism of the play off system. But the main counter to that is that it keeps the season alive for many teams who would otherwise have nothing to play for. How much motivation would fans have to attend games if their clubs season was effectively over by the end of January with no danger of either relegation or a top three finish.

Herts_Green":lxlrki9f said:

That’s a fair point and has always been a criticism of the play off system. But the main counter to that is that it keeps the season alive for many teams who would otherwise have nothing to play for. How much motivation would fans have to attend games if their clubs season was effectively over by the end of January with no danger of either relegation or a top three finish.

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Smaller leagues with a similar number of promotion and relegation places as now would keep things alive. For instance, instead of 24 teams in League 1 you could have 12 teams each in Leagues 1A and 1B (1A being higher than 1B). In the first half of the full season each team plays each other team in its league home and away (so 22 games) with 4 teams going up, 4 teams staying put and 4 teams going down. Then, in the second half of the season with the leagues reformed from the 4 stay put teams, the 4 relegated teams coming down and the 4 promoted teams coming up, each team plays each other team home and away (so another 22 games) with the same 4 up 4 down format. This would mean that a team could be promoted twice, relegated twice, promoted once, relegated once, promoted then relegated back to their starting league, relegated then promoted back to their starting league or, if they were really, really, REALLY boring, stay exactly where they started.

You could allow transfers only in the gaps before and between seasons.

Personally, I think this is an absolutely genius idea with all kinds of benefits not described here - but then I had the idea so I would think that!.

rongreenblood":1ebi5ij2 said:

I think that this year is a good reason to scrap the play offs altogether. It was brought in to balance the leagues,and it was then realised that it can make more money,which is good for lower league teams,but when some teams that finish seventh, several points behind the final automatic promotion spot,and get promoted,it truly shows that it is a lottery. If a team cannot finish in the top three,then I think that they do not deserve to be promoted,and that includes Argyle.

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For most of the Football League's existence, promotion was only given to the top two (or one in Div 3 N&S) so third place meant no promotion. That extra automatic promotion spot was only around for 13 seasons and was dropped in favour of play-offs because it made little difference in maintaining interest in the final run-ins.

If a club now finish in third place in the Championship or League One, rather than missing out on promotion altogether, they get a bonus opportunity via the play-offs.

Have to agree with the OP, a complete waste of time and resources. Especially as the EFL clubs have to stick to the majority of first choice players.
I'd be more than happy to see the competition scrapped.
What worries me is, if the forecasts of many clubs going bust post virus is correct, the EPL will still get the chance to get their U21 or B teams into the leagues.
Whilst this happens a lot on the continent, it just doesn't sit right with me.
I wish all current clubs success in pulling through this horrendous period.

What makes team win a playoff is momentum.

Look at Brentford last season results before the playoffs. No coincidence they struggled to go up but this season they took their better form into the playoffs.

Argyle have been in playoffs where their league form was patchy. No surprise in the season we lost to AFC Wimbledon we produced a good performance against Portsmouth but a terrible one in the final. It was a microcosm of the consistency of our performance levels for that season.

Look at Blackpool since the turn of the year. They have been getting better and better.

It’s like Chelsea in the champions league. I watched that game last night. I thought of the millions spent on both sides. One side played counter attack with 8 behind the ball. Well organised though. The other side tried to play football but had no creativity to open up a side who played park the bus.

It was a disappointing final. Yet Chelsea won because of being well drilled and Pep’s inexcusable tactics playing into the strength of the opposition.

Chelsea also carried the momentum in those games against Man City. And once City played into Chelsea hands it was game over.

Momentum and performances are a huge thing. Look at Utd against Villarreal. Utd’s league form disappeared. So in the biggest game of the season they played like their previous performances

It’s no coincidence that if you watched Argyle the past five years you see with Adams and Lowe a lack of good performances strung together. So because of this you get the bad runs.

It doesn’t matter where we play with stripes, hoops or diamond shirts. It doesn’t (normally) matter where you finish in the league playoffs. What matters is the form and performances you take into the play offs. Sunderland’s form dipped before the playoffs this season. It wasn’t until they played us they won a game for a while. It’s therefore no surprise they never went up.

Consistency. And that little bit of Lady Luck. You not going to play well every game. Yet if you do for 6 out of 10 games and be hard to beat in the others then you have a promotion formula. Sturrock’s team is an great example. I can remember some beautiful performances like 5-1 away to Port Vale. Yet mostly it was about grinding out wins. Wotton putting fantastic corner consistency that eventually reap the rewards.

I do think we have forgotten some of the great things in our coaching, like the importance of set piece delivery, that made lower league football so intriguing. You think how little impact we made from all the attacking set pieces we had. Suddenly you improve in this area you change the shape of a game.

If you do things right, a good number of times, you become a good team. Blackpool did a number of good things right which meant when they went behind today they knew how to get back into the game. No surprise when Argyle went behind we struggle because of the lack of quality in our play. We had no width. The forwards didn’t get the supply they needed which is why l wouldn’t be too harsh on Jephcott. Our repetitive play was repeating bad decision after bad decision and not having the quality in the final third to change this momentum.

Forgetting to dive at any and every opportunity also a reason for losing in the playoffs.

Kentishgreen":2lpu9n43 said:

Forgetting to dive at any and every opportunity also a reason for losing in the playoffs.

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:lol:

(P.S. Can't wait for the four games against Lincoln AND Wycombe next season...)