Odds and Sods

The Football League has displayed a penchant for shortsighted thinking.  The footballer mullet and hideous looking shirts come to mind.  There is also the lovely working concept of deciding all draws by shootouts, which would actually give incentive for a team to park the bus in front of goal and hold out for a draw.  However, one innovation that has been startlingly successful is the introduction of the playoff for the third promotion place.

While the Premier League went through the motions at the end of the season, in preparation for the summer holiday, the Championship, Lower League, and Conference playoffs proved incredibly compelling viewing.  With possible promotion at stake, teams played with a fire lit under their asses producing actual exciting football, a novelty at the highest level.  The drama of Stephen Pearson’s 60m GBP goal far outweighed the “dream” FA Cup Final.

The Premier League should take note of this.  There is little drama at the top of the table, as the “big four” are virtually a lock to finish in the top four slots every season and are the only teams capable of winning the title.  Even then, there is further danger that an arms race between Man U and Chelsea could wittle that down to the “big two.”  With the UEFA Cup an uninspiring destination (for anyone besides Spurs), most clubs view a successful season as merely staying up.  This translates into highly boring football as clubs play cynical football to ensure their 40 pts.  Something needs to be done to shake up the stagnation setting into the Top Flight.  That something is a playoff.

Not a playoff for the title mind you, but a playoff for fourth place.  The Champions League Cash Cow over the last decade has largely been the factor that has allowed those clubs to assert their dominance financially.  The prestige of playing in it every year also allows them access to a certain caliber of player that the other clubs could only dream about.

Measures to enforce equality, such as a salary cap would be difficult impossible to get approval.  The playoff for fourth place would gurantee at least three other clubs getting a shot to play there way into it.

If it had been in place this season, the final few weeks would have been much more exciting.

The “race for 3rd place” between Arsenal and Liverpool would have been far more exciting, with both clubs extending every last resource to avoid having to compete in the playoff.

With CL football on the table, the race for those last three spots would have actually been legitimate.  Reading, Pompey, and Blackburn, who finished within four points of 7th would have been far more concerned about picking up points at the end of the season.  Aston Villa and the Boro probably would have made a mad dash until they were mathematically eliminated as well.

The resulting playoff matchups would have been Arsenal-Bolton and Tottenham-Everton.  With all the cards on the table, this would have produced exciting football with elite talent, an even greater novelty.   If the favored clubs won out, the last match would have been Arsenal-Tottenham, in Wembley, with a Champions League place on the line.

The Premier League needs the big clubs to be successful.  As odious as they often seem, clubs like Manchester United attract interest wherever they go and make everyone wealthy.  Having NFL style complete parity would destroy a lot of the tradition and turn English football into a faceless entity.  There needs to be a compromise between that end game and a completely closed off two-tier league.

A playoff would provide such a compromise.  It would allow the big clubs to be successful, but, at the same time, it would spice things up a bit and allow a well run smaller club to sneak in there.  It would be extremely difficult for a small club to finish fourth, but seventh is certainly within reach of almost any club.

The 4th place playoff would add an exciting end to the season and simultaneously help alleviate the gap between the Big Four and everyone else.  It would make everyone more money.  It would just plain make sense, which is why it won’t be implemented any time in the near future.