Bonus Points

[topscorer]

I've been hearing bits and pieces about the rugby world cup and them talking about teams earning bonus points.

I'm not sure about exactly how it works but it seems that if you score a certain number of tries you get a bonus point.

I know FIFA, players and fans are often very conservative about changing football rules but it seemed like an interesting idea.

Does anyone have any thoughts about changing the league point system to encourage more open play.

For example you could say any team that scores 3 goals or more in a game gets a bonus point even if they lose.

So a 4-3 score line would earn 4 and 1 point whilst a 0-0 scoreline would get 1 point each.

[Craig_H]

Nah, that would be rubbish.

A team could get a flukey 8-0 win or something and lose 2 other games - and would still end up with the same points or more, than a team which won 2 games and lost 1.

[ChesterDave]

Does anyone have any thoughts about changing the league point system to encourage more open play.

Could just stop this crap idea about shielding the ball out of play and make defenders do something instead of the very negative obstruction of opponents trying to attack the ball.

Don't like the idea of fiddling with points

[topscorer]

No

The team that won 8-0 would have 4 point and the team that won 2 games would have 6 points. It's not a bonus point for every 3 goals.

Anyway, that was just one example. Is the current system perfect and no variation can be made? That's how most people felt when we had the 2 point, 1 point system but now I doubt many people would want to go back to that.

But we still complain about 'parked buses' and teams 'playing for a draw'. Maybe with a system like this a team like Blackpool that played open entertaining football would have been able to stay up and teams like Bolton of old would struggle to stay up.

Would that not make the league more entertaining and open?

[ChesterDave]

The reason Rugby offer it if to encourage teams to go for a try rather than kicking for 3. Get a good kicker in the team and they can kick for 3 points from barely inside the opponents half. You only get the point for scoring trys.

I cant see it preventing the parked bus scenario because if they have that play for a draw mentality the possibility of 4 points for scoring 3 goals means diddly if 3 points for scoring one doesnt encourage them to get out their own half.

Edit: The Rugby equivalent for the losing team is a bonus point if they lose by less than 9. So if you offered a bonus point for losing by 1 goal the parked bus mentality remains. Its virtually impossible to defend in rugby and get away with it. Its harder for the opponents the further up the field you go.

[topscorer]

The reason Rugby offer it if to encourage teams to go for a try rather than kicking for 3. Get a good kicker in the team and they can kick for 3 points from barely inside the opponents half. You only get the point for scoring trys.

I cant see it preventing the parked bus scenario because if they have that play for a draw mentality the possibility of 4 points for scoring 3 goals means diddly if 3 points for scoring one doesnt encourage them to get out their own half.

Edit: The Rugby equivalent for the losing team is a bonus point if they lose by less than 9. So if you offered a bonus point for losing by 1 goal the parked bus mentality remains. Its virtually impossible to defend in rugby and get away with it. Its harder for the opponents the further up the field you go.

I understand your points about rugby but how long has this bonus point been in place? I think it's relatively new isn't it? Does it work?

Then the question is can any kind of tweaking influence how open football becomes.

I take your point about a team not going to play for the bonus point if they don't even play for the 3 points but you need to look at the whole dynamic and not just one game.

Teams playing for a draw are all about survival and over 38 games would the rule change mean that it's easier for a Blackpool, WBA, Wigan and Wolves to survive and harder for teams like Stoke who are in 5th place with a grand total of 3 goals in 5 games?

It might force teams to change their survival strategy, rather than thinking at the game tactical level.

And how would it change the top of the table.

[Craig_H]

No

The team that won 8-0 would have 4 point and the team that won 2 games would have 6 points. It's not a bonus point for every 3 goals.

Ok, so a team could win 3-0 10 times and lost another 10 games and end up with 40 points. Another team could win 12 games, lose 8 and only have 36 points. Win more games, but get less points?

Sounds absurd to me.

But we still complain about 'parked buses' and teams 'playing for a draw'. Maybe with a system like this a team like Blackpool that played open entertaining football would have been able to stay up and teams like Bolton of old would struggle to stay up.

Would that not make the league more entertaining and open?

But one of the main factors of why lower ranked sides dont win, is often because they lack quality in the final third and dont take their chances. So they could play open, and still miss chances aplenty. All the while, opening themselves up at the back. So if they could manage to score 3 goals with their open play, but at a cost of conceding 8 or 9, they get a bonus point - you're kinda rewarding them for completely dismissing the defensive part of the game.

Defending properly is just as much a part of the game as attacking.

What you want, is to just follow basketball instead of football

Your system would make losing 9-3 better than losing just 1-0 or 2-0. Which would be utterly ridiculous.

[Fivex]

How would it change the table? Work it out.. it's your idea

[topscorer]

How would it change the table? Work it out.. it's your idea

I don't mean for this or past tables because everyone is playing strategies based on the current system and not some imaginary system

And I'm not suggesting this idea as something that I want I just gave it as an example.

I'm posing the question could the point system be tweaked to make the game better in a similar way to when we changed from 2 points for a win to 3 points for a win.

Craig I HATE basketball. You can turn me right off any idea by suggesting it will make it like basketball

I was just reading on Wikipedia that the 3 point idea was first proposed by Jimmy Hill and adopted in England in 1981 so it's been 30 years now!!

It wasn't used in the World Cup until 1994 and the Spanish League didn't use it until 1995.

[Fosterbloke]

You should get a bonus point for punching Slur Alex in the face.

[RoadEnd]

Just swap the current system for fantasy football league points instead.

[Exiled_red]

I don't like the idea of this

[Fivex]

Just swap the current system for fantasy football league points instead.

Great idea!

[Exiled_red]

This season's table adjusted to give a bonus point for every team that scores 3 or more goals in a game PTS is the current number of points, B is the number of bonus points and New is the points including bonus point

Pos Team........... PTS..B...New
1....Man Utd.........15...4...19
2....Man City........13...4...17
3....Chelsea..........10...1...11
4....Newcastle.......9....0....9
5....Stoke.............8....0....8
6....Aston Villa.......7...1.....8
7....Everton...........7...1.....8
8....Liverpool.........7...1.....8
9....QPR................7...1.....8
10..Wolves............7...0.....7
11..Tottenham.......6...1.....7
12..Sunderland.......5...1....6
13..Norwich...........5...0....5*
14..Swansea..........5...1....6*
15..Wigan..............5...0....5
16..Blackburn.........4...1....5
17..Arsenal............4...1....5
18..Fulham............3...0....3*
19..Bolton.............3...1....4*
20..West Brom.......3...0....3

The main teams to benefit would be Man Utd and Man City who are the only teams to have scored 3 or more goals on more than one occasion. Aside from making the gap between the top two bigger it does very little to the table, only teams with * next to them would change position in the table. Swansea would move above Norwich and Bolton would move above Fulham (note I've only take points totals not goal difference into account).

[PTP]

Slow morning in work exiled red