Town manager Kieran McKenna says he can see the thinking behind the proposal to extend the Championship play-offs to six clubs.

Preston North End chief executive Peter Ridsdale has revived the initiative previously put forward by one-time Crystal Palace and Bristol City chief executive Phil Alexander, who is now interim-CEO of the National League.

The proposal broadly follows the structure of the National League’s play-offs with the fifth-finishing side hosting the eighth-placed team and sixth at home to seventh in one-off matches.

The winners would then play the teams third and fourth in two-legged semi-finals - differing from the National League where there are one-off games throughout - before the Wembley final.

“I’ve only seen that this afternoon,” said McKenna, who is yet to compete in the play-offs as a manager.

“I get it, sort of extends it. But I feel like it’s really competitive anyway, if you look at the last few seasons in the Championship and the way teams can go up and down the league with a run and how tight it’s been at the bottom.

“I know the teams at the top for the last one or two seasons have hit a really high points total, but there’s no guarantee that’s going to continue forever.

“There’s no doubt, even coming back into it, you realise again watching the other teams and the other games, it’s one of the most competitive divisions in world football already.

“The gap between every team is small, every team has good players, you can get good players in the Championship whether you’ve got a big budget or a small budget. It’s one of the most competitive divisions anywhere.

“Extending that to give a few more teams something to fight for in the last couple of games, would probably bring more jeopardy to it at the end, so I can see the thinking behind it.”

So he’d give it the nod if it were down to him? “I’d have to think about it a little bit further.”

Photo: TWTD

Bazza8564 added 08:27 - Sep 12 Personally I would Like to see the play-offs mirror the wild card games in the NFL, with the 6th playing 3rd away and 5th at 4th That way the home advantage would reward those finishing highest. Opening it up to 8th place widens the scope of a team going up after a naff season, don't like more opportunity for the failures, we should have less
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BrazilsBathRobe added 09:00 - Sep 12 I get the general dislike for them but i personally quite like the idea of them, just not the current format. Too many 1st leg bore draws. If we must have them, I would go 6th at 5th, winner at 4th and winner of that at 3rd. One off games, no Wembley. For the Championship, under current format, over last 20 seasons, 3rd place got promoted 45% of the time whilst 6th place was 10% of the time so reckon gap would be even higher in my suggested format. There'd still always be that chance though.

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Henz10 added 14:30 - Sep 12 Completely against this Keep it how it is The 3rd placed team should always play the second leg at home Not sure if that's already the case
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Bergholtblue added 17:07 - Sep 12 Stupid idea!! Unless of course Town finish 8th£
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