League Cup 2020 - Round of 16 Draw

[parsforlife]

14 minutes ago, Jimi Shandrix said:

Would you care to elaborate? Are you excited by this competition? Would you just keep it the way it is?

Yes. I’d like european qualifiers to not get such an easy run and preferably we’d have a better tv partner than premier however the overall format is a great generator of prize money,  gives clubs a fantastic chance of winning/progressing deep in a major trophy.

I’m certain the funds the non-league clubs have gained will be grateful and if your junior team steps up and earns a spot they will be delighted to be involved. I can’t think of a club that can’t achieve a significant achievement through this tournament.

Edited November 15, 2020 by parsforlife

[Jimi Shandrix]

1 minute ago, parsforlife said:

Yes. I’d like European qualifiers to not get such an easy run and preferably we’d have a better tv partner than premier however   The overall format is a great generator of prize money,  gives clubs a fantastic chance of winning/progressing deep in a major trophy.

I’m certain the funds the non-league clubs have gained will be grateful and if your junior team steps up and earns a spot they will be delighted to be involved. I can’t think of a club that can’t achieve a significant achievement through this tournament.

Fair do's. I think it's boring as f**k and should be binned. Bigger TV companies than Premier have got bigger fish to fry. Now, if we're talking of helping non-league clubs with the incentive of a money spinning cup run, hows about copying the English FA Cup format and adding a few more preliminary rounds to the Scottish Cup to let every non-league club take part in that?

[PauloPerth]

I think the group format is great. Agree the teams in Europe shouldn't  have it so easy.

[parsforlife]

27 minutes ago, Jimi Shandrix said:

Fair do's. I think it's boring as f**k and should be binned. Bigger TV companies than Premier have got bigger fish to fry. Now, if we're talking of helping non-league clubs with the incentive of a money spinning cup run, hows about copying the English FA Cup format and adding a few more preliminary rounds to the Scottish Cup to let every non-league club take part in that?

What is boring about the cup? We had BT last year, it’s clearly not impossible to have a channel that gives a f**k involved.

The Scottish cup and the league cup aren’t linked.  But yes on the Scottish cup front I fully support an increase in participants.

 

[Ralstonite]

Speaking from the perspective of a supporter of a diddy club, whose only meaningful silverware has come from this competition, I like the current format and am absolutely deloighted to be in the last sixteen. My only gripe is that if we were to progress, I wouldn't get to watch them.

[LIVIFOREVER]

3 hours ago, Jim McLean's Ghost said:

Celtic v County

Falkirk vs Rangers

Livi vs Ayr

Arbroath vs Dunfermline

Hibs vs Dundee

St Mirren vs Aberdeen

Motherwell vs St Johnstone

Alloa v Hearts

 

Happy with that, nice reunion for Forrest and Devlin.

Edited November 15, 2020 by LIVIFOREVER

[Ian38018]

7 hours ago, The Master said:

What has the SFA got to do with anything?

OK Fair comment.

[Jimi Shandrix]

28 minutes ago, parsforlife said:

What is boring about the cup? We had BT last year, it’s clearly not impossible to have a channel that gives a f**k involved.

The Scottish cup and the league cup aren’t linked.  But yes on the Scottish cup front I fully support an increase in participants.

 

Look at the attendances in recent years. I'm sure most sides could muster a decent crowd if they get to the final but leaving aside the group stage some of the turn outs for the knock out games were very poor. Hibs v Morton 6557, Kilmarnock v Hamilton 3762. 

[Ralstonite]

8 minutes ago, Jimi Shandrix said:

Look at the attendances in recent years. I'm sure most sides could muster a decent crowd if they get to the final but leaving aside the group stage some of the turn outs for the knock out games were very poor. Hibs v Morton 6557, Kilmarnock v Hamilton 3762. 

On cold, winter nights, and not included with the season ticket, I think those are not too bad given the opposition. Personally, I love the cups. Who can honestly say they wouldn't be excited about reaching the League Cup final, besides OF fans?

[farflung lichtie]

As I understand it, for most of the teams, the group stages are a competitive training opportunity to gain fitness and a bit of match practice at the start of/early into the season. That’s why groups rather than immediate knockout round is the format. Much preferable to any kind of friendly and the regionalisation idea is good, even if stretched at times.

At the knockout stages, I’d prefer to ensure the lower league teams surviving didn’t face each other since we meet often enough ( and would also mean a little more variety for the Premier League teams). And teams from same group shouldn’t meet either.

[tarapoa]

St Mirren away.

A team in the same division that we already played in the same stadium in a cup earlier this calendar year.

Quite possibly the dullest draw ever.

[Spikethedee]

European qualifiers have to play away from home. 

Teams from same group can't face each other in the last 16 - runners-up from South Group get North Group winners and vice-versa.

[Antiochas III]

9 minutes ago, Spikethedee said:

European qualifiers have to play away from home. 

Teams from same group can't face each other in the last 16 - runners-up from South Group get North Group winners and vice-versa.

Good idea, but there are 4 North winners, 4 South winners are if you're lucky 2 runners up from each but it could be 4 from one section or anything in between.

 

[Spikethedee]

1 hour ago, Antiochas III said:

Good idea, but there are 4 North winners, 4 South winners are if you're lucky 2 runners up from each but it could be 4 from one section or anything in between.

 

Yes, that's true, use the North/South split where possible to avoid re-pairings and random draw for the others.

[Radford]

It's a conundrum what you do with the Euro teams. Having had the advantage of automatically getting into the second round (and accepting the seeding system isn't likely to change), I'd agree with the above that they play away, allowing the 8 group winners to have home ties. 

This scenario where Hibs could have ended up away to Dundee (as happened with Dundee clubs previously) is ridiculous and surely isn't an insurmountable problem. 

[Antiochas III]

How do you make sure the Group Winners get home ties and the European teams get away ties.  You would have to make the European sides unseeded - and that is not going to happen as you are punishing the European teams for having a successful season. 

[craigkillie]

The actual mechanics of the draw becomes a problem once you start introducing all of these sorts of restrictions on it. At the moment it's a single pot of seeded teams and a single pot of unseeded teams but you'd have to move away from that.

UEFA's draws that avoid country clashes, teams from the same group meeting and so on require a computerised system to ensure that it meets all those requirements, and can be quite hard to follow as a result with stuff like an unseeded team being drawn out first but having to play against the third seeded team and so on. I can't imagine that going down well here at all.

[RandomGuy.]

Just make it an open draw apart from avoiding a side that was in the same group.

[Radford]

3 hours ago, Antiochas III said:

How do you make sure the Group Winners get home ties and the European teams get away ties.  You would have to make the European sides unseeded - and that is not going to happen as you are punishing the European teams for having a successful season. 

You draw the 8 seeds (4 Euro, 4 group winners) first and they go into relevant spot. For example... 

• Livingston vs _____
• _____ vs Aberdeen
• _____ vs Motherwell 
• Dunfermline vs _____
• _____ vs Rangers
• Hearts vs _____
• Hibs vs _____
• _____ vs Celtic

You then draw the 8 unseeded teams and they go into first relevant spot. So if Ross County were drawn first, they face Aberdeen. If Alloa were drawn next, they'd face Dunfermline (having already played Livingston) . 

If you get down to being left with Dundee, Arbroath and St Johnstone, then Dundee would automatically face Hearts as they would be due an away tie and can't draw Hibs again. Equally, Arbroath get Hibs and St Johnstone get Celtic. 

Not straightforward but equally, not impossible to work.

Or just give the 4 best winners and Euro sides the home games. That is a better option that the ridiculous situation where you can beat a team to win a group then get drawn away to them. 

Going forward, I wonder if they'll look at playing the group stages over these international breaks and just involving the Euro sides?

Could start the league season earlier as a result and remove the crazy winter schedule with all the midweek games after the break.

I'm sure @craigkillie will tell me there a simple reason some of that isn't possible. 

[topcat(The most tip top)]

As I understand it, for most of the teams, the group stages are a competitive training opportunity to gain fitness and a bit of match practice at the start of/early into the season. That’s why groups rather than immediate knockout round is the format. Much preferable to any kind of friendly and the regionalisation idea is good, even if stretched at times.

At the knockout stages, I’d prefer to ensure the lower league teams surviving didn’t face each other since we meet often enough ( and would also mean a little more variety for the Premier League teams). And teams from same group shouldn’t meet either.

The fact that it doesn’t really matter that much is one of the attractions of the tournament in general.

It’s a bit of fun.