I believe there are a few reasons why we have seen a significant improvement in our away form recently, especially under Graham Potter. One of the reasons is how loud our atmosphere is away with our fans always making sure everyone can hear us. One game this season that just proves what our away fans are like was against Leicester City when we still had Julen Lopetegui in charge.
In a game which we classed at the time as a must win, we ended up losing 3-1 in an embarrassing loss. But the fans didn’t stop singing the whole game, going through all our songs, singing about players that maybe hadn’t performed to their usual standard but our most sung song was the song created about our big German striker, Niclas Fullkrug. It just shows how much we love the club even when we aren’t in the position we want to be in.
Continuing on with our away support, I believe as players they must see this and know that we are fully behind the team always, even in games like Arsenal away and Newcastle away. The way the players capitalise on the fan support and keep on going throughout the game is why I believe this has helped us this season.
Home Atmosphere vs Away Energy
On the back of our away support, I believe this is also a reason we haven’t played as good at home this season. I’m not the first person to speak about our home atmosphere and I won’t be the last but I don’t think it’s just that it has this issue. A lot of home teams’ atmosphere has decreased over the years and away atmospheres have increased.
I know many fan groups are coming together at the club to help increase our home atmosphere and hopefully this works alongside gaining more points at home. We all can admit when we played in the Europa League, our atmosphere at home was unreal and it was one of the main reasons we kept on winning.
Naivety at the London Stadium
The second reason why I think we have been better away than at home, is we can be naive a lot and presume we have already got the three points before we have. Everton at home was a prime example of this, we turned up and they had not won in a while especially away, and we just looked so lethargic. We had not won in a while either yet we played as if it would be easy and that ended up with us drawing 0-0.
These kinds of games don’t help our home atmosphere because it can be hard to get behind a team that looks like they don’t care. So far under Potter we haven’t really had these games. Brentford at home wasn’t great but we never looked lethargic, we just weren’t at our best and that’s okay when they happen once in a while. We also had a pretty depleted squad as a lot of players were out injured so I think it was a tad more acceptable.
The Potter Blueprint: Frustrate and Counter
Another reason why I believe our away form is better, is due to how we lineup in our away games, especially under Potter. We make sure we hang on in games and frustrate the home team and then counter when we get a chance. This is a prime example for how we managed to take home the three points against Arsenal.
By frustrating the home side it can create a negative atmosphere for them but with our very good away support, the players can always hear them and it can push them in the last few minutes to keep on going. There are many reasons why our away form has been better this season but for the last few games of this season and next season, I do want to see us have a much better home record.
In the Moyes era when we were getting Europe for three years running it was our home form that was the talking point. So next year with a full season with Potter in charge, I can see us having a lot better year home and away and hopefully see us climb into the European places again.
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