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The Away Game Debate - is it harder?

totman

Jose Dominguez
Found this, interesting but old article: I would really like to hear the opinon's of KD, as he never seems to finish his debate on it. What do people reckon?

Myth, psychology or set up? Personally, I think that if a team approaches an away game, like they do a home game, they will force lesser teams to abandon their "home" approach, and all will be rosey.

The next manager to do it will become a pioneer, like a Push and Run, or Total Football genius.



Cameron Carter exposes the myth behind the idea that playing away from home is more difficult and comes up with a few possible solutions

Because it clearly isn’t. What is the immense problem in taking a luxury coach 80 miles down the road to a carefully groomed pitch and playing to the same level as you play at home? Why, year after year, are experienced clubs full of world-class players happy to come away with a point? Think about your reaction as a fan. Should your team lose 1-0 away, it is simply a case of puffing out the cheeks and nodding ruefully. Should they lose at home, however, it is out on the streets with us and we have learned the chairman’s name to say out loud

Take Arsenal last season. A squad containing players at the top of their profession: world-beaters and internationals of a mature vintage. They finished second in one of the most difficult leagues in the world and yet could only manage wins in five of their 19 away games. They failed to score in eight of them. And I’m not even going to bother referring to Chelsea. Alan Hansen talks about a championship-winning team needing good away form, but there is really no need for a distinction between home and away form. It’s all in the mind.

Let’s look at possible psychological explanations. Barry Rich*ards, psychology lecturer at the University of East London, offers Separation Anxiety as a likely cause of poor performance in an away team: “This affects young children when separated from their mother and continues to affect us into adulthood whenever we perceive a loss of a solid base to our existence.”

So the Arsenal coach pulls into Ipswich and Ray Parlour muses “here are not the multi-ethnic streets of home”, noting a dropping sensation in his bowels. On arriving, the players are coaxed into the dressing-rooms. Martin Keown thinks “where the marble halls of Highbury? I cannot see a bust of Herbert Chapman” and darts behind Ars?¿ne Wenger’s skirts. Everywhere are reminders that this is not their home, they do not belong, they are not wanted. This would mean, subconsciously, they want to get the game over quickly and rush back to where they are no longer the anonymous and despised Away Team, but are Arsenal once again. It seems feasible if you con*sider the childlike Gascoigne, Henry and Wise, but are others really going to endanger a hefty win bonus by falling for this one? I cannot and will not believe it of Keown, a man who looks and acts like a shaved gorilla. This little-boy-lost thing simply won’t wash. Half the squad of most teams are foreign anyway and the rest commute from Hertfordshire.

Furthermore, a recent survey centred on an English league club discovered that its players were booked more frequently the further the distance from home they played. This might lead us to conclude that footballers behave and play with less care when away and don’t quite worry so much about the final result. But why? If CCTV can reduce the rates of crime in town centres, surely the presence of Football Extra cameras can make the Tranmere defence just stop and think.

And what really is the difference between clubs that causes such alienation? The town centres, the crowds, the playing surfaces are almost identical. Indeed, the further you descend, to where the pitches are more varied, the fewer problems there are with playing away. When was the last time a successful village team played it cautiously away to Muckleigh Beaverton, trying to catch them on the break? No, they simply turn up in their cars, win 7-2 and wade off to get their sandwiches.

Obviously, the larger home support has some influence on both teams. Wimbledon are a case in point. The Dons attract low home crowds and, sure enough, they had a good away record last season but failed consistently in front of the orienteering few who made it to Selhurst Park. The pred*ictable cajolings of a faceless mass of day*trippers and obsessives, however, does not explain why groups of seasoned professionals, throughout their long individual car*eers, have succumbed to the away hoodoo for more than a century. I mean, it’s the new millennium. My mother has overcome her fear of Channel 4. So come on chaps!

The negative tactics mainly employed by away teams seem more related to another psychological phenomenon, that of Learned Helplessness. In short, every single league club needs counselling to persuade them playing away is not in itself a reason to underachieve. A final statistic – Doncaster Rovers hold the record for away wins in a season (18 in 21 games). A very young team, just back from the Second World War, who knew hardly anything about each other. Analyse that.
 
PL stats this season:

Matches played - 280
Home wins - 123 (43.93 %)
Away wins - 89 (31.79 %)
Draws - 68 (24.29 %)
Total goals scored - 784 (Average 2.80 per match)
Home team goals - 443 (Average 1.58 per match)
Away team goals - 341 (Average 1.22 per match)
 
And this is all seasons in the PL:

Matches played - 7746
Home wins - 3593 (46.39 %)
Away wins - 2071 (26.74 %)
Draws - 2082 (26.88 %)
Total goals scored - 20306 (Average 2.62 per match)
Home team goals - 11782 (Average 1.52 per match)
Away team goals - 8524 (Average 1.10 per match)
 
It's a mentality. Interviews with American Football college players have shown that it doesn't matter if the crowd isn't 'hostile' - but but because they're 'against' you it has an effect. The same can be said of association football. It's harder to play away from home simply because it is an unfamiliar surrounding. Knowing the area, dressing room, stadium, pitch etc will work in your advantage as the players will be much more confident of playing their own game rather than reaction to what the home team will do.
 
It's a mentality. Interviews with American Football college players have shown that it doesn't matter if the crowd isn't 'hostile' - but but because they're 'against' you it has an effect. The same can be said of association football. It's harder to play away from home simply because it is an unfamiliar surrounding. Knowing the area, dressing room, stadium, pitch etc will work in your advantage as the players will be much more confident of playing their own game rather than reaction to what the home team will do.

Totally get this, but it sounds very easy to overcome
 
good question! why does away matter?

It may all be in the mind, but thats not to say its undeserved. If you take the classic example of the Liverpool Kop, its easy to be intimidated. I was chatting to a brazillian work collegue the other day who expressed amazement at british fans being so close to the pitch, and yet the police so far away! In Sao Paolo he said, if it was a big derby match the fans would attack the players physically and frequently they do. Also, alongside the pitch being far from the fans, the police are literally mental and respond to minor provocations with a baton instead of a calm hand or simple removal from the ground, followed by a polite banning order. Here its not so much of an issue because its football, and most people understand this in the modern era. Its not personal. In the Kop days of yore, and places like WHL, it is intimidating to have 50-60 thousand people not on your side, it creates anxiety. You can try and coach it out of people and the best players will get over it, a great example was Gerry Francis' away record with Spurs, we went around the country for the best part of a year getting great results - so its possible. But really its human nature to feel the sense of occasion.

so its a) proximity of fans, must be a large factor. I wouldnt take that away, the atmosphere at grounds is vital for enjoyment unless you support Arsenal. and even then, their away fans are better because they dont mind losing. same with all away supports tbh.

I would also say the 'foreign environment' has little to do with it. The true foreign environment is for example Romanian teams, or Galatasaray or Besiktas where English fans cannot assemble in numbers, there isnt the presence or the will to go there. So for most teams who play in the same grounds every season for 15 years, roughly, it cant be that scary to go somewhere. What changes is the weight of the games, and the atmosphere which comes from that.

I honestly think the margins these days are so fine, that given all things equal, it does come down to one or two players simply not fancying it much. When arsenal lost 8-2, most of their team looked like they had stayed in london for the game. More recently, we battered Everton and failed to get a deserved goal, so that margin was ridiculously tight.

So i think confidence is key, and the weaker players are strengthened by a confident home support.
 
I just saw this, as well:

None of the last 16 meetings between Spurs and Bolton in all competitions have been won by the visiting side.
 
Home crowd can make a massive difference to the home team. And then there are other factors such as being comfortable sleeping in your own bed, the way the pitch behaves etc. But it's mainly the crowd in my opinion, from warning you of impending danger to urging a player to tackle.
 
Home crowd can make a massive difference to the home team. And then there are other factors such as being comfortable sleeping in your own bed, the way the pitch behaves etc. But it's mainly the crowd in my opinion, from warning you of impending danger to urging a player to tackle.

Still sounds like a very poor reason to actually lose games, consistently across such a wide spectrum of teams, countries and eras. For me, non of it adds up.

I can understand in the CL, totally.....but domestically, no. Sleeping in your own bed? Come off it! These guys sleep in 5 star hotels, and play on velvet like pitches.

I think its a cop out of an excuse, and if players cant handle the "pyschological stress" every other week caused by sitting on a luxurious coach, and are "allowed" to lose games because of it, maybe they should take a pay cut for those weeks :-k
 
The fact teams approach the games differently.

Away teams play cautiously and are happy with a point because its a "tough place to go to".

I dont buy it...the reasons, are all in the mind, yet are not strong enough to actually excuse losing, or being happy with a point sometimes. If teams play there normal game, the better team would win more often. Because they are better.

Home "advantage" doesnt make the home team any better whatsoever.

Its about what you do on the pitch, not what pitch you play on.
 
don't think anyone's mentioned the officials yet. a huge factor.

they are far more likely to give a soft penalty to the home team and also will flash yellow and red to the visiting players much more readily than to the home team. obviously the home crowd screaming for those of sort of decisions inevitably has an affect.
 
don't think anyone's mentioned the officials yet. a huge factor.

they are far more likely to give a soft penalty to the home team and also will flash yellow and red to the visiting players much more readily than to the home team. obviously the home crowd screaming for those of sort of decisions inevitably has an affect.

Good point, but that still comes after the initial fact that teams have set up and approached the game differently from the start
 
Thats what confuses me.

I could understand if they were playing in Galatasary.....but Fulham?
I just don't believe it can be 'very easy' to overcome when the majority of the Division One/Premier League champions have had a superior home record. Look at Emirates Marketing Project - they've won something like 19 straight games at home in the league, yet last weekend they lost away to Swansea.
 
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