English cup competitions and English football league 2019/20

[mikesiva]

Colchester knocked Tottenham out of the League Cup!

[Gingerfinch]

The Dons play Liverpool tonight. Could there be an upset?

No!

[Durhamfootman]

I see the horse punchers have re-appeared

You'd think they'd have learned by now. The bloke up here got prison time for punching the horse... the big knob

Seemingly Hampshire police launched their biggest ever football match operation (or some such nonsense) in order to keep pompey and Soton fans apart.... it's pathetic!

when police have to start talking about throwing rings of steel around grounds, which they do all the time, then frankly it's time that local derby matches were played behind closed doors... or settled with the toss of a coin at FA HQ to determine the winner..... give the local hoodlums something to *modded* think about

I see no reason why society should have to tolerate or pay for this sort of thing

[yuppie]

You would be pretty happy being a Liverpool supporter at present.

The club seems to be well organised and they also seem to have a huge amount of talent in their academy.

Also the small amount of getting results would add to their joy.

Must be tough being an Everton supporter at present. Watching your 1st team and new manager loosing to a team of academy players and squad players from your biggest rival.

And its not like they have not spent a lot of money either.

[mikesiva]

Aston villa beat Leicester City to reach the League Cup final.

[mikesiva]

Manchester City beat Aston Villa 2-1 to win yet another League Cup.

[sussexpob]

Torriera ends in an ambulance after a horror tackle, Mike Dean doesnt even give a free kick.

[mikesiva]

FA cup quarter finals

Sheffield United vs Arsenal
Newcastle vs Manchester City
Norwich vs Manchester United
Leicester vs Chelsea

[mikesiva]

Thanks to coronavirus, we had a long wait.

Semi finals July 11-12

Manchester United vs Chelsea
Arsenal vs Manchester City

No underdogs this year.

[Alviro Patterson]

Wycombe Wanderers are promoted to the Championship for the first time in their 133 year history.

Heard they had one of the lowest budgets in League One, in line with the likes of Accrington Stanley and Rochdale.

Looking forward to seeing Adebayo Akinfenwa rip it up in the Championship, I remember him playing for Torquay United some 15 years ago.

[Gingerfinch]

Wycombe Wanderers are promoted to the Championship for the first time in their 133 year history.

Heard they had one of the lowest budgets in League One, in line with the likes of Accrington Stanley and Rochdale.

Looking forward to seeing Adebayo Akinfenwa rip it up in the Championship, I remember him playing for Torquay United some 15 years ago.

One of the favourites to go down and apparently had something like 10/11 players before the season started. It'll be tough in the Championship but gotta give it a go and see how you get on.
It was really unfortunate that this event happened when it did. I know loads of Oxford and Wycombe fans and loads more who have them as their second team as the village I grew up in is about 25 minutes from Oxford and 20 from Wycombe. Going up on the train yesterday would have been quite the occasion.

[sussexpob]

Congratulations on getting promoted, GF. Enjoy the moment. You might now want to shut your ears off and miss the part below...but...

Wycombe going up leaves a bit of a bitter taste in the mouth, considering they finished 8th. The Football Associations insistence on using a basic PPG system was flat out nonsense, a team like Peterborough who still had all the bottom 7 to play were deemed to have an inferior record to Wycombe, who still had some top clubs left and who's form was totally in free fall. In fact, in two months to the end Wycombe lost 8 league games and drew another. There only points against a top half club in 2020 was v Ipswich on New Years Day, a team that finished bottom of the form table. Their last win vs a top half club was in mid-November.

Yet the FA decides they should be elevated 4 places because the match they had in hand, a cancelled game away to Coventry due to Covs FA Cup 4th round tie, would be awarded on a PPG average. Coventry were on a 14 game unbeaten streak with 12 wins, how likely is it a team that hasnt beat anyone decent in 4 months would go away to an unstoppable team like Coventry and win? Well we can see the likelyhood, because they played the Wycombe home leg in January and Coventry dismantled Wycombe 4-1. The team that Wycombe replaced in the playoffs, Posh, also dismantled Wycombe 4-1 towards the end of the year. And Wycombe had by far the worst goal difference in that part of the league, a draw in that cancelled game put them below all the other 60 point teams.

Like Tranmere suggested, a weighted PPG on strength of schedule, like they do in the NFL, should have been used.

[Gingerfinch]

Yes definitely not fair for the reasons you have given but I doubt any system would have been fair. Playing a bottom 7 side sounds easy but these teams will be fighting for their lives.

[Alviro Patterson]

League form tends to change or throw a curveball around March time. Whoever would have finished 2nd, 6th or 21st after 46 games is anyone's guess, though Rotherham looked vulnerable.

The PPG system appears to be a fair reflection because it takes wins and losses into account. Despite both sides winning 17 games, Peterborough have lost 10 matches to Wycombe's 9, whereas Tranmere have lost 18 matches to Wimbledon's 16.

Even the League Two final standings seem fairly decided, the top 7 teams have been decided on who has won the most games. Port Vale looked good for sneaking 6th or 7th, but drew too many matches.

Ebbsfleet might have got relegated from the National League by 0.002pts, but they won the 2nd least amount of matches (10) and lost the joint 3rd highest amount of matches (17).

[sussexpob]

Obviously every system comes with a problem or challenge. I just think that strength of schedule played is so important in judging the worth of your points, its fairer to have taken that into account. The Football league couldnt have had that much faith in PPG.... they didnt use it for the Championship nor Non-league.

On that note, its been sad that football in the lower regions seems to have been considered lower value. Why is the top two leagues continuing, but all below stopped? Surely its all or nothing in terms of leagues, and if that costs money, then its the premier league who should be increasing their solidarity payments to cover it? Not sure anywhere else you have seen only top leagues continue