Lee Bowyer hits out at ‘wrong’ method of concluding Ch’ship that would see West Brom promoted
Charlton Athletic manager Lee Bowyer has hit out at the EFL’s potential plan to decide the Championship season on a point per game average – a measure that would see West Brom promoted.
The governing body released a statement on Thursday reiterating their preference for playing any remaining matches as initially planned, but did point out that they would be willing to turn to PPG if the campaign has to be curtailed early.
Because every team in the second tier has played 37 games each, that would mean that the league table would finish as it currently stands.
And with his side currently in the bottom three, Bowyer has spoken out on the matter.
Speaking on talkSPORT, he said: “There are 27 points to play for, that’s a lot of points! This time last season Aston Villa weren’t even in the play-offs positions, and now they’re in the Premier League.
“It would be wrong this points-per-game, because we’ve played 37 games this season and for 36 of them we ain’t been in the bottom three. We’ve only been in the bottom three for six days – give us the chance to get out!
“At the end of the day we signed a deal to say you go down after 46 games if you’re in the bottom three, well that ain’t the case.
“So give us the chance, but if not you can’t be relegating teams just because you’re in the bottom-three with nine games to go, no matter what the circumstance, that wouldn’t be the right thing to do.”
We agree with Bowyer that the fairest way of resolving this matter is for the Championship season to be played to completion.
Hopefully, with clubs due to restart training on Monday, that should happen.
But these are uncertain times, and if something does crop up that means we have to reassess the likelihood of matches being played, then it would be much fairer to resolve things with a PPG average than it would be to void the entire campaign.
If the season has to end early, at some point somebody is going to lose out – it doesn’t seem right to punish sides at the top of the table over those at the bottom.
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