[h=3]Play-off dates don't make sense to Poyet[/h]9:00am Friday 12th April 2013 in Albion By Andy Naylor
Gus Poyet believes there is too greater gap between the semi-finals and final
ALBION boss Gus Poyet has hit out at the dates for the Championship play-offs.
He believes the semi-finals and final should be closer together and that clubs should have been consulted.
The season ends on May 4 and the first legs of the semi-finals take place on May 9 and 10 (7.45pm), with the return legs May 12 (12.30pm) and May 13 (7.45pm) and the final at Wembley on May 27 (3pm).
Poyet told The Argus: “I don’t understand the play-off dates. I don’t understand why you finish on the fourth and you need to play Thursday and Monday or Friday and Tuesday, then you go two weeks before the final.
“Will they blame TV? Probably. But if they know about football and they know how much effect a final has on a player they should know the sooner they play the final after the semi-final the better.
“That doesn’t mean the next day but, if you give him three or four days off, then they should play, so why they didn’t plan it to play (semi-finals) the week after?
“Why do they need to wait so long, why they can’t do the FA Cup final somewhere else, why does it need to all be at Wembley? There are plenty of questions.
“Sometimes, when somebody gives you an answer, you analyse and maybe you agree. At the end of the day you have to use common sense but when they don’t explain they give you a doubt, like do they know?
“Do they know there are teams finishing on the fourth who are going to be in the Championship and a team finishing on the 27th is going to be in the Championship?
“They are still thinking, wrongly for me, that to go to a final and lose the final is a nice day out. I can tell you it’s not, it’s a terrible day out.
“If somebody thinks it’s about enjoying the day they don’t understand how much we care about winning, so they should be a little bit more careful when they set up the dates.”
Albion, currently sixth, could be promoted to the Premier League via the play-offs, but Poyet is not a fan of the system.
He said: “We know we’ve got play-offs because it’s all about money? Me? The three go up, three go down. I don’t want play-offs.
“They say if not, in the last ten games of the season, you will lose out with the many teams in the middle. Well, bring the teams down to 20, stop playing 46 games, make it more about quality, give the players a chance to recover and perform better.
“That will bring people to the stadium, not playing 250,000 games and making the fans spend fortunes, travelling even to three away games (in a row) like we played. That is bad.
“Again, we haven’t been consulted about this. They keep doing what they want. We’ll try to adapt.”
Original article
ALBION boss Gus Poyet has hit out at the dates for the Championship play-offs.
He believes the semi-finals and final should be closer together and that clubs should have been consulted.
The season ends on May 4 and the first legs of the semi-finals take place on May 9 and 10 (7.45pm), with the return legs May 12 (12.30pm) and May 13 (7.45pm) and the final at Wembley on May 27 (3pm).
Poyet told The Argus: “I don’t understand the play-off dates. I don’t understand why you finish on the fourth and you need to play Thursday and Monday or Friday and Tuesday, then you go two weeks before the final.
“Will they blame TV? Probably. But if they know about football and they know how much effect a final has on a player they should know the sooner they play the final after the semi-final the better.
“That doesn’t mean the next day but, if you give him three or four days off, then they should play, so why they didn’t plan it to play (semi-finals) the week after?
“Why do they need to wait so long, why they can’t do the FA Cup final somewhere else, why does it need to all be at Wembley? There are plenty of questions.
“Sometimes, when somebody gives you an answer, you analyse and maybe you agree. At the end of the day you have to use common sense but when they don’t explain they give you a doubt, like do they know?
“Do they know there are teams finishing on the fourth who are going to be in the Championship and a team finishing on the 27th is going to be in the Championship?
“They are still thinking, wrongly for me, that to go to a final and lose the final is a nice day out. I can tell you it’s not, it’s a terrible day out.
“If somebody thinks it’s about enjoying the day they don’t understand how much we care about winning, so they should be a little bit more careful when they set up the dates.”
Albion, currently sixth, could be promoted to the Premier League via the play-offs, but Poyet is not a fan of the system.
He said: “We know we’ve got play-offs because it’s all about money? Me? The three go up, three go down. I don’t want play-offs.
“They say if not, in the last ten games of the season, you will lose out with the many teams in the middle. Well, bring the teams down to 20, stop playing 46 games, make it more about quality, give the players a chance to recover and perform better.
“That will bring people to the stadium, not playing 250,000 games and making the fans spend fortunes, travelling even to three away games (in a row) like we played. That is bad.
“Again, we haven’t been consulted about this. They keep doing what they want. We’ll try to adapt.”
Original article