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Bristol Post
Bristol Post
Sport
David Byrom & David Dubas-Fisher

Ipswich Town promoted as Coventry City and Bristol Rovers narrowly miss out in radical League One solution

Let's face it, if the season does get back under way after the coronavirus shutdown, Bristol Rovers would have little to play for.

A poor run of form in the second half of the season means the Gas have no chance of going up or down in League One.

Instead, players would likely be playing for their future under manager Ben Garner, who would be looking for his side to reproduce the sort of performance that saw them beat Sunderland before the lockdown.

It perhaps means that some supporters may well opt to focus on next season, rather than losing sleep over whether this current campaign is completed or not.

Yet a radical proposal in France may well pique Gas fans' interest if it used here as well.

The French Prime Minister has ruled that there will be no sport until September, effectively calling an early finish to Ligue 1.

One solution that has been mooted as a way to decide the title and relegation is to take teams' first half of the season - as in the first results they have achieved against opposition teams.

So how would League One look if the Ligue 1 (no pun intended) approach was taken here?

  Club GD Pts
1 Wycombe Wanderers 12 43
2 Oxford United 19 37
3 Ipswich Town 11 37
4 Coventry City 6 37
5 Peterborough United 14 36
6 Fleetwood Town 8 36
7 Bristol Rovers 1 36
8 Rotherham United 15 35
9 Doncaster Rovers 11 34
10 Sunderland 8 34
11 Blackpool 6 34
12 Shrewsbury Town -3 32
13 Gillingham 4 31
14 Portsmouth 3 31
15 Lincoln City 4 30
16 Burton Albion 0 30
17 Accrington Stanley 1 26
18 Rochdale -14 22
19 Tranmere Rovers -14 21
20 AFC Wimbledon -8 20
21 MK Dons -13 20
22 Bolton Wanderers -33 18
23 Southend United -38 7

After Bristol Rovers' strong first half of the season under Graham Coughlan, the Gas would finish second, missing out on promotion by a single point.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, considering their penchant for grinding out single-goal victories earlier in the campaign, it would be goal difference that would cost the Gas, alongside early defeats to the likes of Coventry City and Blackpool.

Coventry City and Rotherham United would be the biggest losers, with both denied promotion despite currently occupying the top two places in the division.

Oxford United and Wycombe Wanderers would go up automatically thanks to their strong starts to the campaign.

Tenth-placed Ipswich Town would arguably be the biggest winners, depending on how the play-offs are solved.

In a situation like this, it would presumably mean that no football can take place for the foreseeable future, which would likely rule out any situation where the play-offs can take.

That could well mean Ipswich go up automatically, as they are currently sat third in this table.

At the other end of the table, MK Dons are relegated on goal difference alone - which would likely bring some satisfaction to AFC Wimbledon.

Tranmere Rovers, currently three points off safety with a game in hand, would finish a point clear of the drop zone.

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