Up and down

[Andy S]

Should the play offs include teams getting relegated? Watford obviously do not have a bad side they are tipped to bounce straight back up. Would it spice things up a bit to add a couple of the relegated teams into the mix

[fulhamben]

no it would be an unfair advantage. how many times does the Scottish team get relegated from the spl, bet it favours them staying up

[We Are Premier League]

18 and 19 placed teams play eachother and the winner go into playoff instead of the 6th placed team...

[Wolf]

Play-off place positions go down too low imho. I'd have 18th in the Prem included rather than 6th in the Championship. The National League is particularly unbalanced in rewarding in-season performance: 2nd through to 7th play off for a promotion place.

[Black and White Town]

A friend came up with a system that would at least be interesting:

Have bottom 2 in Prem auto relegated, and top 2 promoted from Championship to Prem as now.
Then have a playoff between 3rd from bottom in the Prem vs 3rd from top in the Championship.

[SuffolkWhite]

What about relegating 2 definite from the Prem and then 3rd and 4th teams in the Champ play the 17th and 18th in the Prem at a  neutral venue (Wembley) ?

[FFC1987]

A friend came up with a system that would at least be interesting:

Have bottom 2 in Prem auto relegated, and top 2 promoted from Championship to Prem as now.
Then have a playoff between 3rd from bottom in the Prem vs 3rd from top in the Championship.

Unfair advantage on the Prem team still though isn't it really? It should be a like for like, hence why current system works.

[Sgt Fulham]

Why reward failure and reduce flux between the leagues? It would be much less exciting than the current system, especially due to the massive gap in resources between the two leagues.

[Penfold]

The first season of the play-offs was 1986/87 and in that season, and 1987/88 sides near the bottom featured in the play offs. Have fond memories of Chelsea being relegated via the play offs in 1988.

In Germany, top two from Bundesliga II are automatically promoted and bottom two from Bundesliga relegated. Then 3rd in the second tier plays a two legged play off v side that finished 3rd bottom in top flight.

The Dutch system is extremely complicated!

[Dougie]

No. The side going down would have an enormous advantage in terms of squad resources, due to PL money. Nothing fair about a £110m/year club facing off against a £25m/year club.