The League of Ireland has been dramatic and crazy – but that ...

‘The LOI is the only league impervious to analysis.’

That’s the post I stuck up on social media last week, along with the top-flight table — paraphrasing something Sigmund Freud never actually said about Irish people.

One response led to me saying that a top-bottom split is needed to continue the madness all the way to November 1.

I was joking. But there is part of me that would be curious to see which fanbase would spontaneously combust if the FAI announced a change of format in the middle of the season.

Yet this fun and crazy campaign does come with the disclaimer that the madness that has epitomised the opening half may disappear in the second.

We have been treated to great games, huge shocks and fascinating storylines.

But the sad thing now is there is only one Shelbourne versus Shamrock Rovers, Damien Duff versus Stephen Kenny and Derry City v Shamrock Rovers left.

The current top three of Shels, Derry and Rovers have just four more head-to-heads between them.

The reasoning was the Irish solution to an Irish problem that was introduced two years ago without any complaints.

European-qualified clubs wanted games off in July and it has been unfair on sides not in Europe to inconvenience them to do so — as had happened for years.

But the unintended consequence of that has been to move the big games to Monday nights early in the season.

When you see how those European-qualified clubs will play 23 games of their league campaign in the opening 113 days but just 13 in the final 126, it looks wrong.

Of course, that’s because there is the potential for those teams to also fit in four FAI Cup clashes and 11 European ties in that time as well.

But the flip side of that is how the second half of the campaign — for the neutrals — will be shorn of the big games.

Predicting a season is always difficult anyway — with Galway and Waterford possibly proving to be big games in September.

And there would likely be ructions if the FAI’s fixture computer threw up a list that backloaded lots of big games.

But other leagues like Belgium, the Netherlands, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Poland split midway through to ensure there are title and relegation six-pointers late in the season.

Kieran Lucid’s All-Island league proposal leaned heavily on similar ideas based on data from the Dutch that showed crowds were more interested in games that mattered.

And, before him, Declan Conroy proposed it for the League of Ireland in 2015, though it was roundly rejected at the time given it had not worked in the LOI in the 1990s.

But times have changed. In America, basketball and baseball chiefs have noticed they are now post-season sports, even to their hardcore fans. And the NFL sought to add further post-season games to profit off people’s desire for games that matter.

Being honest, I can take or leave the Champions League group stages but I have been glued to every knockout match.

Whether it is a split, a post-season or a longer season to put the big games later, the LOI needs to give us more big games in big spots.