Had a theory about this for a while, this is the solution! Doesn't involve any expensive technology, is completely free, would make for more attacking play and would, overnight, eradicate parking the bus and dinosaur managers like Allardyce and Pulis etc. It's a win win!
The solution: simple points changes -
No points awarded for a 0-0 draw -
I realise defending is an important part of the game but, fundamentally, the game is about scoring goals. It's the prime objective, always has been always will be. It's what we all want - goals, excitement and entertainment. By awarding a point to a team that fails to achieve this basic objective over 90 minutes we are rewarding failure. A typical example - let's say Pulis/Allardyce et al get drafted into a struggling Premier league side at risk of relegation who have 10 games of the season left. His first game in charge is away to Man City. Predictably he plays one up front with a plan to sit back, time waste, frustrate the opposition and battle for all their worth to gain a point by parking the bus. In doing so his side inevitably bore everyone to death with the negativity on show. We've all seen it a million times. It's a nightmare.
However, imagine if such negative managers were faced with the knowledge at kick off that they would gain absolutely nothing from a 0 - 0? Their negative approach would instantly become redundant; they'd have to become more adventurous in their play, be more expansive, take risks and basically opt to attack. Parking the bus would disappear overnight. Also imagine their work and approach on the training pitch every week, it would be geared to more expansive play generally. It would have to be! They simply couldn't survive or exist otherwise.
6 points for a win - Of course, with the above approach there would be the odd exception - let's say an underdog side happens to score a flukey goal in the first minute of a game and then decides to park the bus. To try and counter this I'd double the current points total to 6. This would dangle a carrot to the sides that happen to score early then protect what they've got/shut up shop. So, if they're a goal up and could sneak another they may well go onto win the game and gain an extra 5 points. That's quite a reward and would prove a huge temptation. Under this system 1 point isn't much better than none so dangle the carrot!!!
1 point for any score draw - I'd keep it to one point for any score draw so as to temp teams to push on for what would be an extra 5 points for the win; thereby encouraging more adventurous play.
There you go. Wouldn't cost a thing and I genuinely think it would make a world of difference and go a very long way to eradicating negative football/parking the bus culture. When I've mentioned this to others they often try and tinker with it by coming up things like 'how about two bonus points to the away team if they score 3 goals' etc etc. NO! Keep it simple as above.