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| Chelsea team |
What a weekend of football I've had: on Friday night I watched one of the
best games I've seen this season as Middlesbrough won 2-1 at Brentford in the
Championship play-off semi-final first leg.
On Saturday I went to Newcastle to watch them draw 1-1 with West Brom in
the Barclays Premier League – decent enough but fairly tame.
Sunday, I was at Stevenage's thunderous no-holds-barred bloodfest with
Southend in the League Two play-offs. You will not have seen two more committed
sides this season.
And then on Monday I went to the Emirates to watch Arsenal face Swansea in
a drab, lifeless affair.
It reinforced my long-held belief that the Premier League needs play-offs.
The title race was done and dusted with three games to go. The
Champions League spots have been pencilled in for some time now. And two of the
three relegation places were virtually assured a month before the end of the
season.
I still love the English top flight, and some of the
football is brilliant. But the end-to-end excitement at Griffin Park, Ipswich
and Norwich drawing 1-1 at Portman Road and then the unbelievable, ridiculous
5-5 draw between Swindon and Sheffield United on Monday night, were much more
exciting.
So why can't football go down the same route as rugby union and rugby
league? At the end of the regular 38-game Premier League season you crown the
minor champions. You then have a four-team play-off culminating in a massive
match at Wembley to decide the Grand Final winners.
I can hear the traditionalists lacing up their brown leather balls as they
read this and saying the idea is preposterous. It's what they said about
sponsors' names on shirts in the 1970s. It's what they said about having
substitutes in the 1960s. It's what they said about footballers earning a
living wage form the game in the dark ages. It's what they said when the
Football League play-offs were first introduced in the 1980s.
In 2002 when the RFU announced the new play-off system to
determine the champions there was outrage. But now you won't find many who want
to get rid of the Twickenham showpiece final which regularly attracts over
80,000 fans.
From a financial point of view it makes total sense.
From a fans' point of view, who wouldn't love a massive one-off match at
Wembley to decide the champions of England?
But is it sporting? Is it right that after 38 games, at the end of a long, hard
season, you have to then go through more hoops to earn the right to be called
champions of England?
Well I think it is and here's why.
A 38-game season is a huge test for a manager and his players. But it means
you can have a strategy – it means you can rest players here and there, it
means you can be negative when you want to be. It means avoiding defeat
sometimes becomes the target.
So have a league season of course. But tag on to the end of it a cup
competition and you have a true test of a squad of players and a manager. Can
they handle the challenge of a nine-month season? And then can they 'go again'
and handle the pressure of the play-offs for the ultimate reward?
It would give Arsenal and possibly even Liverpool some hope of winning a
title ever again I suppose.
Champions decided by end-of-season play-offs might scare a few people. But
the excitement generated by those games would be electric. Look at the
Championship play-off final – a stunning fixture on the calendar.
Throw in play-offs for Champions League places and maybe even relegation,
and all of a sudden there's plenty to play for every week.
It's been too easy for Chelsea this season. We have to find a way to make
it more challenging, so that the fans get more excitement. Isn't it supposed to
be about entertainment?
Source:dailymailsport.co.uk
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