Joey Barton says he will feel sorry for Sunderland if the League One season is cut short and the Black Cats' promotion hopes are dashed.
The season has been suspended due to the Covid-19 crisis but the Fleetwood Town manager and former Newcastle United midfielder says his team - like Sunderland - want to play on when it is safe to do so, believing they still have a chance of earning automatic promotion.
Fleetwood are just two points behind the second-placed Rotherham United, and Sunderland one point further back, with with Barton's men having nine games remaining, the same as the Millers, and Sunderland eight.
But if clubs vote to cut short the season, the EFL have revealed controversial proposals to settle the table based on points-per-game, which would see top two Coventry and Rotherham promoted, and eighth-placed Wycombe elevated to third place, with Peterborough elbowed out of the play-off places as a result.
Along with Wycombe, Oxford, Portsmouth, and Fleetwood, would compete in the play-offs.
At the bottom of the table, Bolton, Southend, and Tranmere would be relegated - with the Merseysiders justifiably unhappy, given they are just three points behind fourth-bottom AFC Wimbledon with a game in hand of the them.
And Barton told Sky Sports' The Football Show: "I'd prefer to finish the campaign, we've been quite vocal about that from the start.
"We believe we could have got [one of] the [automatic promotion places], I think we'd had one defeat in 17, unbeaten in 12 and been away to every side who had a chance of winning the league.
"We had to play nine games, six of those were in the bottom ten, three of those six were in the bottom three - you'd argue Bolton and Southend were already down and probably only Tranmere fighting for survival there - so we felt like we had a shot at the automatics, we were two points behind Rotherham with them to play at home.
"We're disappointed in this but we will get a chance with a play-off situation and I do feel sorry for Sunderland - I never thought I'd say that - but I do feel sorry for them, I feel a bit aggrieved for Gillingham, Doncaster and even Ipswich probably because they all would have had a legitimate shot at a play-off place.
"Peterborough, who are a very good side, it looks like if they do a points system they will miss out [along with Sunderland] and Wycombe will jump in with Oxford, Portsmouth and ourselves."
While there is a group of clubs in with a chance of finishing in the promotion or play-off places who do want to continue, there is also a hardcore who do not want to play on either because settling the table based on points-per-game suits them, or because they have no incentive to play behind-closed-doors because they have nothing to fight for and therefore see completing their fixtures as an unnecessary expense.
"I think there are a lot of factors [surrounding teams not wanting to play the rest of the season]," said Barton.
"They don't have much ambition to play on because they don't have much to play for and that's understandable.
"They've got no crowds in, which is a huge part of the revenue streams for those types of clubs.
"They've obviously now got a Government-backed furlough scheme where they can recoup a percentage of the salaries while the crowds aren't in and the likes of Accrington and Rochdale, they've seen Bury go out of business last year, Bolton almost went out of business too, and you can understand them wanting to protect their football clubs because of the impact those clubs have on the local community.
"I'm not here to tell anybody they should do one thing or another, but I would say is you start the season with the aim of playing the 46 games and I think you should adhere to that....
"If we're not careful, we might not have football clubs to come back to so we've got to find the balance between what is right for everybody, but also what is right for the integrity of the competition and I think it's important to finish the competition if we start it.
"Hopefully we do that and there are going to be winners and losers in this.
"I think Tranmere will be aggrieved going into League Two next season, Sunderland, Peterborough and a few other sides will be aggrieved and the winners will probably be Wycombe in that scenario, getting in [to the play-off places] and Rotherham have won the lottery getting second because I think they had six of the top ten to play in the last period.
"So it's not fair for a lot of sides but on the other side, this is a global pandemic and we have to resolve it one way or another for the sanctimony of the competition."
