We must end the ‘lottery’ of penalty shoot-outs. Here’s an alternative…

The Mailbox pleads for penalty shoot-outs to be binned. Also: Rangers; Aaron Ramsey; and Trent Alexander-Arnold is a great defender.

Get your views in to theeditor@football365.com…

Bin penalties

Its late and I’m grumpy at yet another cup final being decided on penalties.

Not having a pop at Liverpool or anyone else here, but winning a cup via penalty shootout vs an outright win seems…a bit lame. Extra-time is supposedly there to produce a result, but frankly if 22 players can’t do that in 90 mins then it’s not likely to happen with the extra 30. It needs a shake-up.

What if each team starts extra-time with one less player, and has to pull off a player every 5 mins thereafter. It will end up being 5-a-side by the end and the players will be absolutely knackered but the chances of the last 30 mins being goalless would be pretty slim. It would throw out some interesting strategic decisions – who to take off, when to take them off, how to use substitutions. And if after all that the scores are still level then by all means have your penalty shootout. But to my mind extra-time becomes a far more entertaining spectacle with a greater likelihood of producing a deserving winner, instead of a 30 min filler before the inevitable shootout lottery.

Off to bed, hopefully it still seems like a good idea in the morning.

Brad

Rangers’ woe

Gutted for Rangers. Awful. Genuinely hoped they’d do it. Aaron Ramsey: £7M a year in wages (£175K per week, Morelos is next highest on £33K per week), barely played (9 appearances in all competitions), on loan, subbed on, and can’t stick it in the net from 12 yards. Great contribution Aaron. Commiserations to Rangers. Gutted for them.

Anon.

Should we ignore City, Newcastle, PSG?

So, we are coming