Rival boss gives verdict on Portsmouth being denied promotion by points-per-game model

The manager of Pompey’s League One rivals branded the notion of deciding who goes up and down on a mean points return for the season a ‘ridiculous’ concept.

There’s a growing sentiment the third tier season is going to be cancelled amid the coronavirus crisis.

And one of the ways being forwarded to decide what happens are variants of the model which looks at performance so far this term.

It’s an approach which would stop Kenny Jackett’s men reaching the Championship - and condemn the team they beat 2-0 in February to relegation.

Mellon can’t fathom how employing the approach would be fair to sides.

He told TalkSport: ‘People know how difficult those last 10 games are, so for somebody to think they can predict the outcome of those games with a computer which can’t measure emotions or how the games would go is ridiculous for me.

‘If we were to be on the wrong end of that, because we’re on a good run, we’re coming to a group of games we believe we will get something in, there’s no doubt about that because we’ve just come through a run of playing the teams at the top end.

‘I think it would be more than harsh for us to be punished for something we haven’t even achieved.

‘We haven’t achieved relegation. There’s still 10 games to play and we’re still in the mix.

‘We’ve still got the teams above us to play, so it would be desperately disappointing for us at Tranmere for a whole host of reasons.

‘We were in good form and more than holding our own, so to have that decided by a computer on points per game seems ridiculous to me.’