[Albion] Why are we so BAD at home?

[macbeth]

Yes this has been done to death, so feel free to skip out, but I have been trying to work this out over the last few days with the gift of renewed perspective following the win at the weekend. Much easier to have a more subjective view when things aren't so doom and gloom.

But I came across this on twitter today and it has absolutely floored me (credit to @veryharshtakes on twitter)



The stat here is xGD, which is expected goal difference, so calculated out of the figures for expected goals both for and against. You can make reasons as to why we're bad at one thing or another when it comes to home form, such as scoring, or winning games, but I just don't understand how we can be so utterly terrible overall, with some of the away performances we've seen. This isn't me having a dig at any of the playing or coaching staff, or wanting to see another thread about the atmosphere, nor do I want to discolour the mood on here after such a fantastic result at the weekend. It's just absolutely baffling. How can we be worse at home than Watford, and only marginally better at home than Everton are away, and yet only have worse away xGD than Liverpool, Chelsea and Wolves?? It's puzzling, that's all. For there to be so much discrepancy between our home and away form there has to be something more going on, shirely?

 

[Jeremiah]

Basically because I'm there.

 

[rippleman]

Jeremy Corbyn

 

[Justice]

Bottle tops

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

Flasks!

 

[albionalbino]

Potter thinks it's us, the fans. We shout "shoot", we boo, we're silent, we leave early, our expectations are unreasonably high.
He might have a point. It would be interesting to see how our home performances compare during lockdown and full house.

 

[zefarelly]

Potter thinks it's us, the fans. We shout "shoot", we boo, we're silent, we leave early, our expectations are unreasonably high.
He might have a point. It would be interesting to see how our home performances compare during lockdown and full house.

They don't, hence the problem

snowflakes

In all seriousness atmosphere and clientele have changed a lot . . . and flasks, big big difference.

 

[JBizzle]

Potter thinks it's us, the fans. We shout "shoot", we boo, we're silent, we leave early, our expectations are unreasonably high.
He might have a point. It would be interesting to see how our home performances compare during lockdown and full house.

When we're going through a tough patch, I genuinely long for an run of away games. I was also certain that when we were playing behind closed doors during the pandemic that we'd be absolutely fine relegation-wise.

I honestly think that our home fans are not that great at backing the team when things get tepid, which is quite often. To me, this is on account of games in the PL being less of a barnstorming, all-action adventure and more a tactical bout between often quite well matched teams. The "backs against the wall" atmosphere is superb, the "2-0" and cruising atmosphere (although rare) is great too, the "0-0 and the team need a crowd boost" atmosphere is almost always a bit lackluster.

Away from home, you tend to always fall into the "backs against the wall" category so the crowd is usually more vocal and engaged.

 

[Curious Orange]

The crowd would be less tepid if the team shot on target more often.

 

[dangull]

Brighton play better when teams want to attack them more.
More often at home a lot of teams are quite content to sit back and wait to counter attack on the break. Over the last few years this problem has yet to be resolved.

 

[Frankie]

If you happen to actually be at the game and wonder why the atmosphere is so dull you then become a part of the problem,a bit like sitting in traffic queues moaning about the amount of traffic.

Atmosphere is a component of any matchday experience which not only enhances your enjoyment of the game but it's proven to push teams on to perform better,the draconian rules and regulations surrounding British football haven't helped and at Brighton the rules are distinctly over the bottle top.

Having a top on a bottle of liquid will do nothing to stop its trajectory if over half full so that's a complete nonsense of a rule for a start.

I'm not too sure why people bother going to football matches if they're just going to sit there and not get behind the team whatever the score,surely if you at least try to get behind the team and everyone decides I've had enough of the dull atmosphere then going to the game would be worth it and you'd probably get a response from the team.

I'm not for one second advocating anything illegal just more gusto from the paying supporter.

If you go to a away game the dynamic is completely different those that go are generally up for a good day out and very rarely will you see droves of away fans leaving on 80 minutes to then go stand in a queue for 20 minutes so they can do whatever it is so important that leaving a game before the end is,I've no idea why this happens at home games so much,and that would definitely transfer itself onto the pitch.

Players are performers,they thrive on applause and recognition,jogging off before the end of a performance is basically telling the players your not that impressed.

Anyway that's my theory,obviously other factors come into play but I do think if the atmosphere was more raucous then the team would respond.

 

[British Bulldog]

I guess it's not easy for anybody to perform in front of a flat audience? Especially when so many are inexperienced at this level?

 

[Weststander]

Brighton play better when teams want to attack them more.
More often at home a lot of teams are quite content to sit back and wait to counter attack on the break. Over the last few years this problem has yet to be resolved.

This.

The vast majority of opponents at the Amex sit fairly deep in big numbers, rope-a-doping a possession obsessed home team, then counter attacking the space we leave.

We don’t have the goal scorers to make possession in a very crowded box count, or a variation in home tactics.

 

[PHCgull]

interesting that we have the biggest variance and CP have the smallest - and yet our records are identical!

 

[Steve in Japan]

I won't pretend to understand how we got to this stage, but it's clear (to me at least) that GP and the team do not enjoy playing at home. They feel the weight of the crowd's expectation, confidence is shot and things go from bad to worse.

Nothing that a thumping great home win wouldn't fix!

 

[el punal]

Let’s just simplify this. The team starts on the front foot and goes for it the fans will go for it as well. Two way street and all that. If the opposite is true then welcome to the Rue Morgue. Everything else is just bollocks. This is called nutshell philosophy. Adios!

 

[Happy Exile]

Well...nothing happens in isolation, everything is a co-created experience. In an incredibly non-original way I think it's a combination of the crowd and the players and it's a chicken and egg situation. The players need to perform to get the crowd on side. The crowd being on side helps the players perform. It's no-one's fault, just how it is. It's well established in sports psychology (and I've referenced it elsewhere on the board) that having a mindset where you play to win is more often successful than a mindset where you play to avoid losing. Home advantage should come from comfort with surroundings, having the majority of the crowd behind you, the positive atmosphere of being on your own turf (literally) etc etc so the perceived risk of losing is less than being away where you're potentially defensive in every context from the moment you arrive. But all that is lost if the atmosphere of that home environment carries pressure to avoid losing. When you're focussing on what not to do rather than what to do your brain stops acting as you've been trained and stops being so instinctive. If you're interested in this kind of stuff it's why some teams only choke at home in big games - suddenly the pressure to not lose feels much bigger than the incentive to win. Chelsea and Real Madrid's respective home/away performances in the Champions League over the past week and a bit for example.

There's an audible groan around the Amex at every attack that breaks down, at every misplaced shot, the vocal frustration at drawing again...anyone who says it doesn't or shouldn't affect players is living in a fantasy world. Graham Potter's occasional digs at home support acknowledge this. It's partly what managers talk about when they say players like Foden are fearless - it's not just fearless of opponents, it's a rare skill to shutout all emotion so opponent, location, situation, size of the game...it's all irrelevant. Compare that home Albion experience to going away where anything at all they hear from their supporters is on their side but sometimes perhaps they won't hear much at all over the volume of home support, and it's not hard to see how that conscious or subconscious mentality to avoid defeat is absent when away. It's probably a lot more fun playing at an away ground and a lot less pressure.

Listening to West Ham on the radio the other day when they played Lyon a lot was made of how the move to the new stadium killed their atmosphere and performance for a long time, but nights like that were creating a new history, there was a generation coming through who'd only ever known that ground, and the crowd were making it a place where the team thrived and other teams knew they'd have a tough game. Very different circumstances for us obviously, I'm not drawing any new stadium link because there isn't one, but just reflecting that every former player interviewed about that game or commentating on it said the crowd makes a huge difference - they were saying the crowd getting supportive again after all the disputes was as much a part of the West Ham revival as Moyes. Our players are unlikely to ever get to a point where they can shut out or stop caring about 28,000 fans groaning at a back pass - they're human. It's also human to groan at an Albion corner ending up back with Sanchez after 23 touches and without an opposition player ever getting near the ball. It's just how it is.

We should be safe this season, then hopefully a summer break and the Albion will come back firing and have the crowd behind them from the off. I think where we'll have problems is if the season starts poorly - I reckon if we get relegated it'll be a season where the team lose the home crowd early and it becomes a self-feeding circle of the team and supporters feeding each others' negativity that's impossible to break out from. It's not unique to us at all, a lot of teams have it in cycles and I think we'll move on from it at some point as West Ham did when expectations and reality from both players and supporters are slightly closer together. That might come from a relegation sadly, or it might come from settling into being a regular mid-table side or better (again, as West Ham)...the highs need to outweigh the lows consistently, or the lows need to outweigh the highs consistently, but once that happens I think we'll see a different side at home even if the players are the same.

 

[mwrpoole]

I don't have any stats to back this up, but we seem to do well when we don't boss possession, on Saturday we had 35%.

Quite often at home we have 60%+ and that just slows our play down which makes it too easy to defend against.

 

[southstandandy]

Brexit

 

[South west gull]

I won't pretend to understand how we got to this stage, but it's clear (to me at least) that GP and the team do not enjoy playing at home. They feel the weight of the crowd's expectation, confidence is shot and things go from bad to worse.

Nothing that a thumping great home win wouldn't fix!

When we are coming out the tunnel at home you can see the nervousness in their faces & away we look relaxed as if we are going for a kick about in the local park just something that I have noticed

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