Are struggling teams missing their fans?
Bottom teams have taken three points from possible 39
We knew the teams in the dead zone of the Premier League were probably bad — the table doesn’t lie, after all. But this bad? Since Project Restart, the bottom four teams have taken three points from a possible 39. Above them, it took West Ham three games to secure their first victory. And yet the mood music from Norwich, Bournemouth, Aston Villa and Watford before this nine-game mini series was of a fresh start; a chance, perhaps, to mirror Leicester’s miraculous great escape in 2015, where they somehow won seven of their last nine and survived. So what’s happened?
The obvious answer, mooted by Norwich’s Daniel Farke, is that these struggling teams are missing their fans. After their defeat against Everton, Farke maintained that had Norwich supporters been at Carrow Road, they would have drawn the game, perhaps even won it. People at Carrow Road that day said there was a noticeable hush after Michael Keane scored, as players retreated into their shells amid the silence.
But it’s not as if the bottom teams weren’t warned. The evidence from Germany’s Bundesliga was very much that home advantage had been lost. There was rushed physical preparation for this mini-season — but how mentally ready were the players?
Different experience
Paul McVeigh is a former Tottenham and Norwich midfielder who, since retiring from football, has carved out a successful career in sports psychology and performance,
People at Carrow Road said there was a noticeable hush after Keane scored, as players retreated into their shells amid the silence.
the lessons from which he now applies to business situations in worldwide keynote speaking tours that have stopped off in Dubai in the past. Does he think the players in this situation need a crowd to perform?
“Well, it’s a very different experience for them, but the last thing they should be doing is letting that be an excuse,” says McVeigh. “Fundamentally I would tell them the game has not changed, so you should be doing the same you were before — working hard, trying to press the opposition, opening up goalscoring opportunities and so on. They’re still playing for their Premier League status, their careers, their livelihoods — it’s just that there’s no one physically there watching them do it.”