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Alternative Split


CaleyD

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I came up with an answer to the problem with the split which actually solves another problem...more on the second problem at the end.

The problem with the current split is that teams in the bottom half cannot climb any further than 7th and top half drop below 6th. You then have the argument about our situation where our points tally would have taken us to 5th....and the counter argument that it's maybe in part due to "easier" competition in the closing games.

So, how do we get a split (to maintain fixture numbers) where teams can still move freely up and down the table without the easier/harder games argument? Well, you don't split it top and bottom.....

Instead you take the league places after 33 games and you split into two groups of odd placings and even placings.

Those in places 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 & 11 form one group, the rest another group.

This means that the level of competition across the remaining 5 fixtures is spread across all levels and as such you can justify allowing teams to move freely up and down the ladder based on the points they earn.

The other problem it (likely) solves is that you don't have the worry of an OF title decider (Police don't want it, SPL are scared of it). As they are going to be, more often than not, 1 & 2 after 33 games they will be in different groups. If they are 1 & 3 then someone is splitting them and any OF match isn't likely to be a title decider so a lot less tension involved.

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Would be more interested in hearing why you think the idea might be flawed...it may well be that there's something in the idea that I am missing, but random throw away comments don't help to highlight them.

And, FWIW, I don't drink and post :lol:

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Okay then, how about the gruesome twosome having a game less against each other? For that alone it'll never happen.

I agree that change is needed though.

I'd like to see the league split 8/4 after 2 rounds of fixtures. The bottom 4 joining the top 4 of the sfl1 and so on effectively ending with 5 leagues of 8. Starting next season in the rank position from the previous season. That should make each season a lot more interesting outfit the spl as other than top of spl all mini~leagues would have to start from scratch.

I honestly haven't touched a drop either.

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What about if it's split according to the star-sign of the right-back's surname. In case of injury, then it should switch to the reserve right-back, unless the left-back has moved over, in which case it goes to the elder of the right-sided central defender or right midfielder :tongueincheek:

Seriously though...

The whole point of the split is that the teams at the top can play amongst themselves for the Euro and Championships spot, whilst the rest have a relegation battle. Splitting any other way just means continuing the season without the split.

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The point of the split is that the SPL don't want a 44 game season and the split takes that down to 38.

I'm not advocating the split and of course I would love to see a larger league, but I don't think we are going to get either any time soon. If we have to keep the split, then let's do it in a way that keeps competition going throughout the entire league for the whole season....sure that would be better than the status quo?

There's been comments from both sides of the OF this season that they're playing each other too often (7 times this season), so I'm not sure you would get that much resistance from them to a setup which gives 1 less match. We have the police pushing for fewer games between them and the SPL have said that things like creating fixtures and having to avoid an OF end of season decider causes a lot of problems, so they should support an idea that potentially avoids that scenario.

In terms of league position, we may the only one effected this season, but other teams have been in other seasons so I'm sure it's not just us who cares.

What's more, imagine a scenario like today where two teams are fighting for the top and the potential of them playing against teams fighting to avoid relegation....more than just two of the teams out there with something to play for would create far bigger interest and, potentially, far more interesting matches.

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No a bad plan CaleyD but I can see it being unpopular with teams who may expect to be in the top 6, e.g. Hearts, Dundee United, O.F. for the loss in revenue playing against supposedly lesser teams post-split. And of course one less O.F. derby, which may appeal to the police but perhaps not to the clubs and TV companies. Theoretically we may only have 3 O.F. derbies in a season under your proposed system, whereas under the current system it is very unlikely there'll be less than 4.

To prevent the scenario where a club in the bottom 6 may have more points than clubs in the top 6, why not just award all teams who make the top 6 an extra 15 points.

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Seems like 10 team idea has been dropped as Doncaster finally realises it's not got enough support...meeting next week to discuss a 14 team league proposal instead.

Really? Superb!!!! I like your split idea (although my preferred option is no split atall!) As previously mentioned, the old filth would never vote for it. Also, the point of the split, is that teams fighting for the league / europe are playing each other at the end, and the same with the relegation candidates, which may not be the case with the alternative split idea, so IMO the current split has the potential to create exciting end of season games - dare i say it, our relegation decider with Falkirk 2 seasons ago for example. I dislike however, how we can't finish above 7 now. No split is the best way IMO.

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Sounds like a very clever yet simple solution where the split disappears but the fixtures are split odds and evens.

for example one group could be Rangers,Hearts,Kilmarnock,ICT,Aberdeen and St Mirren and the other Celtic,United,Motherwell,St Johnstone Hibs and Hamilton.

But

Too many clubs would complain if they didnt get to where they wanted to be and blame the club selection though, including the OF complaining about unfair home advantage against each other.

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I couldn't work out if D had simply forgotten the :tongueincheek: at the end of his post, but it appears to be serious!

The main flaw IMO is that the whole idea is based around solving a problem that, to most people, simply isn't a problem! Dunfermline got 70 points this season, do people think it is wrong or unfair that they didn't get the chance to battle for the SPL title or at least a place in Europe? Nope. Likewise, next season, should Hamilton be allowed the chance to show how high up up the SPL they could get? No because at the point at which a "split" was taken they hadn't done well enough and were on the wrong side of it, so the best they can hope for is to finish above the teams they are thrown in with.

It's like in golf, you miss the cut, you're out, even though you might possibly have gone on to win the tournament if you'd been given the chance to continue. Well you had your chance in the first 2 rounds and you blew it.

The odd/even thing then removes the best thing about having the split in the first place, the chance to maximise the number of "6 pointers" and meaningful fixtures at the end of the season. 5th v 9th in May? Yawn.

As a minor point, you've then got the difficulty of balancing the number of times teams face each other home & away. At present, equilibrium relies on the teams at the split being in the half of the league the SPL expected them to be in - which is difficult, and contentious. With D's idea, it relies on predicting whether a team will be in an odd or even position at that time!

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Not sure I buy the idea of comparing the scenario to that of teams from other leagues not being able to progress up (or down) within the season, but I get where you are coming from and would say that the difference is that the SPL under it's current setup is preventing that movement within the defined season....if you want to play the season within a season card then you surely have to look at the idea of scrapping all points at the split and everyone playing from scratch...as happens after each Golf Tournament...never going to happen in football.

Although looking at Golf at a model, we could operate a handicap system based on league position from the previous season to help tighten things up a bit!!! :tongueincheek:

The scheduling for top 6 bottom 6 is as much of a lottery as the odd/even split in terms of predicting who's where and having a very quick glance back through the records I don't think they have ever got it right and because they take into consideration the previous seasons home/away game counts as well then it would be pure luck if they had a season where everything worked out even. Split and Equilibrium are never likely to be used in the same sentence regardless.

You may not have as many 6 pointers at the end of the season, but what you do have is ALL teams playing for league position (barring a run away season for someone top or bottom). You're never going to finish the season with a 6 pointer at the top anyway because the SPL wouldn't allow it. They went out of their way to prevent it this season as it would have involved both of the OF, but even if it was only one of them and a.n.other they would likely have steered away from it. What we got instead was two teams fighting for the title against two teams with nothing to play for....and look at the results!!! With my suggestion it would be no worse.

As 12th Man says, the OF are unlikely to accept that the other half might get more home advantage when they meet than them and that would kill the idea. It shouldn't and they should expect no more or less than what the rest of the league have to put up with, but they won't....that was one thing that hadn't crossed my mind.

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One reason for the split - mentioned on here - is that the SPL dont want a 44 game fixture list ..... I dont see why they dont then work backwards ..... As it stands, SPL teams play 38 fixtures: 3 x 11 + 1 x 5 (split)

The League Cup is played over 6 rounds (although some teams do not enter until Rd2 or Rd3)

R1 (32) = D3, D2, & D1 teams + 2 x SPL

R2 (20) = Winners of R1 + 4 x SPL

R3 (16) = Winners of R2 + 6 SPL

R4 (08) = Winners of R3

R5 (04) = Winners of R4

R6 (02) = Final

The Scottish Cup is played over 8 rounds (although some teams do not enter until Rd3 or Rd4)

Prelim = If required

R1 (35) = HFL, South and East of Scotland Leagues and Junior winners. (HFL, South and East winners bye to R2)

R2 (32) = Winners of R1, HFL, South and East winners, SFL D3 sides

R3 (32) = Winners of R2, SFL D2 sides, bottom six from SFL D1

R4 (32) = Winners of R3, SFL D1 top 4 from previous season, 12 SPL sides from previous season

R5 (16) = Winners of R4

R6 (08) = Winners of R5

R7 (04) = Winners of R6

R8 (02) = Final

So as it stands, a top SPL side who reach the final of both cups might be expected to play 38 + 4 + 5 = 47 games plus a handful in Europe.

As neither the Scottish Cup or the League Cup are attractive enough to advertisers to have sponsors, and the league cup doesnt even offer European qualification any more perhaps it is those competitions where reform might assist the league ??? Serious question .... Do we even need the league cup any more? Lower league teams have the ALBA cup, all teams have the Scottish Cup, and the SPL teams are always bitching about fixture congestion.

If we stick at 12 teams, get rid of the split, play each other twice at home and away, and allow teams in the SPL to either opt-out of the League Cup or to field a reserve squad then that might be 49 games for a side reaching final of Sc. Cup ... just two more than now!

If we increase to 14, and presumably play each other 3 times then that would be 44 games for teams opting out - 3 less than now. However, you still have that uneven number of times playing each team that we have now.

If we increase to 16, and presumably play each other twice then that would be only 35 games (or 39 if you stayed in all cups) and you might need to look at beefing up the cup competitions, perhaps with divisional cups or some potentially interesting group stages when it comes to the last 16.

I just feel there is way more scope to tinker with the format of un-sponsored cup competitions and make sure the league format is fair and equitable. The biggest problem of course is that the Scottish Cup is SFA controlled, the League Cup is SFL controlled and the SPL is SPL controlled so until those three bodies amalgamate into one governing body for Scotland and make everyone pull in a single direction for the good and benefit of ALL (not just two, or twelve) then we will simply roll from one bad idea to the next to the next ......

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Looking at the numbers above - the most attractive (to clubs) might be to stick to a league of 12 but to do away with the split .......

You would have 44 league games with a guaranteed 22 of those at home (3 more than now). You would have 2 home games against the OF (1 less than now) and the final table would truly reflect a single league rather than a league within a league as it is now. As we have - until now - been a bottom six team, those additional fixtures would also tend to be against more attractive opposition.

Based on averages (I know - not very scientific) .... I would suggest that the 3 additional home games would more than make up for losing a single OF game .....

OF games this year (3) = 7547 + 6799 + 6702 = 21048. avg = 7016

Home Games (excl OF) (16) = 64,349. avg = 4022

So lose 1 OF game = -7016

Add 4 home games = 4022*4 = 16088

Net gain in crowd = 9072

I also think some of the hidden costs would go down or perhaps stay similar ... you have more games but probably the same amount of policing and other costs spread over those games due to it not being OF games. You lose 1 x OF hospitality but instead get 4 games against sides only slightly less 'attractive' than the OF.

I know its very subjective - as it always is when dealing in stats or generalities, but it seems to make sense. My only worry is that until now, I have been a fan of 16 but I seem to be convincing myself that 12 is the right number if we get rid of the split !!!!!

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3 x 11 + 1 x 5

I think 170 games is a bit excessive!!!

Given that multiplication signs take priority over addition signs in a formula then that formula actually comes out to 38 as you well know. However, just to keep you happy, maybe you prefer it as (3x11)+(1x5) :nanananana:

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:lol: Yeah, I know.....I was having the old argument about whether 6/2(1+2) equalled 1 or 9 argument earlier (it's 1, but I really hope Mr Bannerman thinks it's 9 as I would love to have that discussion with him :tongueincheek: ), so the subject was already in mind.
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