Somethnig very interesting in Goat's book

[Beefy]

I've read through the chapter about his year with us and one thing he said in particular really made me think.

Talking about the promotion-winning match he says:

"I was glad we were playing at Swansea rather than Roots Hall, because we were not handling our fan's anxiety at all well."

If we've got any chance of staying in this division we need our players to want to be playing home matches, not to dread them, because our home form is vital to us. Goat's not the first high-profile player to say this - Mike Marsh apparently hated playing at Roots Hall because of the negativity around the ground the second anything went wrong.

*stupid typo, that obviously should have been "something very interesting"*

 

[DTS]

I think its a very good point Beefy. The crowd do seem to turn very quickly at the most basic things. For example a misplaced pass and all three stand lets the player know.

 

[Angell Delight]

I think it's natural when you're so close to promotion but are wobbling a bit for the fans to get edgy and it's very difficult not to take that out on the players - I think Shaun was only talking about the last couple of games (Gillingham and Doncaster) in which our anxiety was showing, not all the time at home.

 

[Beefy]

Yeah, that is what he's talking about. But during Shaun's time here we were playing very well at home and the fans had no real reason to turn on the team. But at the business end of the season, as soon as anything went against us the mood changed very quickly. And this season we're going to have a lot of things going against us.

 

[Skyblue]

Isnt that the same at any ground around the country?

??

 

[fbm]

Quote[/b] (Skyblue @ Sep. 25 2006,18:00)]Isnt that the same at any ground around the country?

??

I agree... we're hardly unique. I've stood in the home crowds at West Ham and Orient and can confirm that when things aren't going well they get far worse. In fact, Orient (back in the late 80's) had amazingly critical home support for a team that won the play offs.

I used to snigger and think "Thank God we're not like that at the Hall".

Incidentally, rather bizarrely I was more nervous and anxious when we were 2-0 up against Sunderland than I was when we were 3-1 down to Norwich and 2-0 down to Cardiff.

Does it come down to the fact that we are having the season now that most thought we would have last season? Perhaps we really weren't "ready" for a second successive promotion and we know that a lot of our squad are still effectively league 2 players. When we are on top of our game, we are good enough for this division. However, all it takes are 2 or 3 players not on song and it all goes the way of the pear.

To be honest, when you consider the way Palace took us apart for 10 mins, QPR for a half, Norwich for about 20 minutes and Cardiff for about an hour, it really does feel as though we are punching above our weight.

The squad is desperately short of real Championship quality. I sense a dogfight this season and the patience of many fans will be tested to the limit and then a bit more.