EFL League One Statement 21/05/2020
https://www.efl.com/news/2020/may/efl-statement-coronavirus-update2
Unweighted PPG it is then if the season is finished. 12 teams would need to vote this through, all but guaranteed in my mind.
Playoffs will be four teams with us playing Fleetwood and Oxford playing Portsmouth.
Should no games take place then the EFL will vote if we are to be promoted.
Peterborough’s season is over.
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Who decides if play-offs happen... or not? Is that EFL in consultation with clubs or another vote?
If 12 or more League One clubs vote to end the season then it’s over apart from the playoffs.
The EFL have decided on straight PPG should the vote go to end the season.
Playoffs will take place between Wycombe v Fleetwood and Oxford v Portsmouth. Should these not be able to take place then an EFL committee will vote if we are to be promoted.
Not sure on who decides if playoffs take place. IMHO I hope they do not take place and we are placed third but without promotion.
The football league have owed us a shot at the playoffs since 94/95. It’s good to see them righting that wrong.
Excellent.
Getting some clarity and a good outcome for us.
TBH, the outcome that @wwfcblue has scripted would be fine for me to.
Me too to be fair @EwanHoosaami. I can't see how the play-offs can realistically take place between now and June 30th, and i think two up two down is the best way of solving that problem.
Yes fully agree that as my preferred option out of this (much as I did like whoever it was suggestion of the celebratory dance at Oxford)
Take the satisfaction of rattling Oxford and the others out of it and I broadly agree, but I can't see any way that the EFL wouldn't send three teams up.
They seem to be worried about setting precedents and then the EPL capitalising.
I understand why some people feel that being promoted this way would be unsatisfactory, but if the EFL decide that is the fairest outcome, we’ll be rewarded for what we achieved over the season before it was abruptly ended.
The EFL won't give up one of their golden promotion spots to the PL, so therefore neither will L1 or L2
I agree @glasshalffull, just doesn't feel right, although to deny Bayo & the Generals a promotion medal, (or whatever),also feels wrong, if that makes sense?
If we get promoted by some bizarre accounting system I will be totally dissatisfied with the way the integrity of the game has been destroyed...whilst also finding the loud, angry braying of other clubs and the subsequent years of hatred we will have to endure quite funny. Does this make me a bad person?
Ultimately, we do not deserve to get promoted, but (if you will bear with the double negative), we do not NOT deserve to be promoted - all teams in the top eight or so exist in a kind of "shoulda-coulda-woulda" limbo. It's not the best, but if the alternatives are awarding promotion on around 80% of the season, or null and voiding it owing to the remaining 20%, the latter seems much more undeserved.
I like the Peterborough Chairman's idea that all football should be scrapped in favour of an endless series of legal battles. So long as we get to sit in the public gallery chanting "McAnthony's a wanker".
He'll blame us for time wasting when the court is adjourned ten minutes late...
I still find it difficult to understand that social distances state we stay 2 metres apart yet we are are talking about playing football. Over 300 people died in the last 24 hours from Covid 19.
Will be very interesting sight to see a team defending a free kick from 20 yards out with a 2 meter gap between each defender!!!
it's okay @johnthehair we're talking about playing football (or not I'm not entirely sure) on a football forum which is okay...and I'm a long way away from my nearest Gasroomer.
It does not mean we are not taking the virus seriously, we have 24 hours in the day to fit everything in.
It's happened tbh
It’s difficult to see how the season can resume with all the games still to be played. That leaves only two realistic options, declare the season null and void and no one goes up or down or find an artificial method of arriving at a final league table. If the majority of clubs and the EFL hierarchy democratically decide that PPG is the best method, then we should have no embarrassment about where that leaves us.I would prefer to play to a finish and either win promotion or stay in League 1 on merit, but I don’t think that’s going to be possible.
Agreed.
Seems pretty clear to most of us.
But then I guess, slightly easier for us to take it, as we enter the playoffs, which whatever happens is a terrific season for us.
A bit more annoying for clubs in the playoffs, on top form, to then drop out, when they were looking at going up auto.
Not to apologise for the Peterborough guy, who comes across as a dreadful character, but to apply a little balance.
Fair comment but we would be rewarded for our results across the whole of the season pre-lockdown, not just the form at the time it was introduced.
Yes very true. I certainly wouldn't feel like we'd been gifted anything.
Although I am glad we didn't have a game in the last 10 days before it was all called off -and lose. As then we'd be moaning at missing out!
The thing about form was that many clubs had runs of good form which suddenly translated to awful form for a while for no real good reason. Ourselves for one but Peterborough as another example (and Ipswich took it to extremes). Just because a club was on a good run going into lockdown would be no guarantee they’d continue in that vein
Ultimately, we will never know what would have happened, and though BCD would be "on the pitch", it would certainly not equate to an equal season home and away. If people complain about when we got to play Bolton, they would find reasons to complain about the BCD results going forward:
"Yeah, but we had to play Coventry away with a crowd. Wycombe didn't."
"Yeah, but Rotherham had great away form, and would have probably won at Adams Park if they had had their away fans, like they beat us."
Ultimately, there is no way of a fair season, even if it is completed, unless we really did wait until we could have crowds - and even then, contract issues, etc., would mean it was not really fair.
This whole thing is about most fair, and though I do sympathize with anyone truly messed around by this (when I think of how we were one win away from 2nd on PPG, I can well imagine how hard it is for Peterborough and Sunderland fans to be equally one win away from hope), it is not a conspiracy, or victimization. It is trying to make the best of a crisis. If that means the season was left unfinished, so be it. But if they decide to promote and relegate, fans have to find a way to live with that too.
The acid test will be in the Premier. If they aren’t able to complete the season it will be very hard for them to relegate sides if it’s really close without some substantial financial bribe to any club relegated that way. If that deck of cards fall so I guess would the EFLs
let's not forget Arsenal were promoted in a fairly dubious/not-league-table based way after WWI and have won 13 league titles since then. Will we go on to do the same? It's not for me to say [yes]
I don’t think we should be getting too excited about reaching the play offs. What it means is that we’ll have to take all players and probably all back room staff off the furlough scheme and start paying them to train for matches that may well prove impossible to stage. Unless the Football League is offering to subsidise this for the four teams in each division affected - or the tv money from the play offs is guaranteed even if the matches don’t take place - I think we should be wary about committing significant sums given the very precarious nature of the club’s current finances. Training for what, six weeks?, potentially for just one match vs Fleetwood, when we have a couple of asthmatic players and Gareth has already put on record how uncomfortable he is with resuming football while people are still dying? Personally I’d prefer to see us take the moral high ground and choose to have nothing to do with the play offs even if they do get voted through.