Home v Away

I have always been intrigued by how some teams manage to play so well at home and then capitulate away from their stadium. To me, the widely accepted explanation that the fans are the twelfth man, spurring their team on to victory, seems too inadequate in my opinion. The cheers of fans can only do so much to a player, if they do not have the quality or form they just cannot beat their opponent. Similarly, the boos for the opposing player will not bring them down that much, they know that they are playing for their own fans and team. Sometimes, the boos might even spur the opponent own as some payers relish such a challenge. I set out to look at the home and away form of the Barclays Premier League teams from last season.

Before I looked at the statistics, I had some guesses in place. Firstly, the difference in performances is because of the in-built mindset that is anchored in players and managers that it will be a more difficult game once they are away from home. Thus, the team is set up in a way to avoid defeat and the players have little confidence in themselves to win the game, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. This can be observed in teams that visit the Etihad Stadium, with most of them being too fearful of City's attack to put up a good fight. If teams had taken the game to City like they would at home, perhaps City would not have had such a long unbeaten record. The second reason that I had is that teams are more used to playing in their own stadiums. Traveling to different stadiums entail different conditions such as the type of grass. The type of grass can cause the ball to travel slightly slower or faster and this is especially troubling in today's game, where accuracy and precision is emphasized as any mistake will definitely be pounced upon by the opponents. Thus, teams that play a style with lots of passes will probably be more disturbed by the prospect of traveling away from home.



Looking at the statistics of the 2011/12 season, Fulham topped the list for more goals scored at home than away while Wolves and West Brom are the only teams that scored more away than at home. If we were looking at the Fulham of this season, I would say that the statistics would support my point that passing teams will score more at home. However, the Fulham of last season relied more on defensive superiority and counter-attacks as is West Brom of last season, who I can say scored more away due to the willingness of home teams to attack, leaving holes behind and leaving them susceptible to counter-attacks.

Moving on to the goals against category, those in the top four of conceding more away than at home include Swansea, Newcastle and Arsenal, while I will discuss more about QPR later on. Swansea, Newcastle and Arsenal all played very pretty passing football last season and they persisted with it away from home too. The problem there is that teams at home are more likely to play a high pressing game and more likely to intercept stray passes of the three teams in dangerous positions higher up the pitch. This possibly caused them to concede the high number of goals they did away relative to at home. On the other end of the spectrum, Bolton, Fulham, Wolves and Man United all conceded more at home than away. There is no real reason that I can think of for this, except that those teams are set up much more to attack at home due to pressure from the fans and manager.

The points won at home see some obvious deviations too, with the lowest being Bolton at 44% and highest being QPR at 70%. This is the only place where the fan support reason might be arguably acceptable. For most of the season, QPR's fans were very loud and vocal in their support of their players. More often than not, they also taunted the opposing players, something most obvious in the match against Chelsea. This might have contributed slightly to the results they got at home and the more deflated performances they had away.

Other interesting points that I picked up from the home v away table was that Aston Villa recorded the most draws away from home and I guess this should be attributed to Alex McLeish's negative attitude away from home and his setting up of the team defensively. The other interesting point is that while generally, the home form is better than away form for most teams, the second highest occuring score line last season is actually 1-2, with 1-1 being the most common. Nothing much to read into here I guess, just that it is out of the ordinary.

My conclusion is that home form is generally better due to the fan reason as well as the two reason that I came out with. There are some additional points I might like to add on to the point about differing conditions at home after I see the statistics though. Seeing that passing teams are not the main and only ones that are affected, I have thought of two other conditions that are different when playing away. The two main ones are the size of the pitch and proximity of the stands from the pitch. Pitches have to fall into a certain size category but they are different at least by a little bit while the proximity of the stands will affect a player's perception of how far up they should hit the ball. Thus, teams that play longer balls will also be affected by the home and away difference. Overall though, it seems that there is no real trend to how being at home or away affects the kind of styles that teams employ. I would say that it is more of the injuries, form of a team as well as the unpredictable happenings on the pitch that eventually determine a result. Well, if you always know who would win, watching the matches would not be so fun.

Footnote: I have just got my phone stolen so I might not be able to post on weekdays anymore unless I find the money to get another phone. I will try to do some scheduled posts or borrow someone else's phone to post though so stay tuned. On another note, do try and advertise this site to your friends if you like what you read and click on the ads on the page. Many Many thanks. Oh and do comment!