The fans.

[RecordBreakers]

It didn't stop Liverpool from winning their first Premier League title so that's always been a load of bollocks as far as I'm concerned. Anfield has one of the best match day atmospheres in football full stop. Why didn't it effect them?

We went down because we didn't score enough goals and recruited poorly for the second summer in a row. The season before we averaged a goal a game over the course of the season, but a solid defence and ability to retain possession delivered results despite this. The warning signs were there and that's why I predicted relegation after seeing the players that we brought in over the second summer. Greatest transfer window my arse!

Three poor transfer windows saw very few players come in who could challenge the Championship team who got us up. Every club strengthened their teams, we strengthend our squad, well added to our squad. You can't say that Lowe, Burke and Ampadu strengthened our squad. When the Championship team lost form there was no one good enough to replace them, hence why the Prince told Wilder he could stay on if we went down, but would have to work with a director or football who would sign players, not Wilder.

We also didn't have a Jack Grealish to sell for big money to fund our summer further. O'Connell was our best bet but he sadly got injured.

But yeah, no fans is why we went down. That's the real reason.

And if u think anfield has one of the best atmospheres then ur a joke

 

[mattbianco1]

So I remember a lot of folks on here saying the reason we tailed off and we’re so bad in the second Wilder season was our fans weren’t allowed in to watch games. Now fans are allowed in and we are worse than under Wilder does anyone still hold this view?

The gulf in class has widened in just 2 seasons away. Its clear to see, the rich clubs are getting better and better, and the clubs from 8th downwards are in their own mini league.
Maybe the Super League wasn't a bad idea afterall?

Covid has a lot to answer for and I feel it has helped to widen this gulf.
The rich teams were never in danger - Mancs, Arsenal, Spurs, Liverpool etc. they're too big to be threatened by lack of income. But other clubs had to be careful in how they operated their finances.
There was barely any spend in the EFL following covid as teams just couldn't afford the outlay.
The rich just ended up getting richer and pulled further away.

 

[BobbyDavison'sDebut]

Other clubs DID overcome our overlapping centre back tactic however think the reason was because we didn’t have our 1st choice CB’s doing it.

Don‘t think its as simple as “let’s ask the centre backs to overlap“ because very few centre backs in the world can play it effectively.
O’Connell was a centre back but also highly capable playing as left wing back and he had a great cross.
Basham had great stamina and had experience playing as right back and as a midfielder, so Hecky asked him to play all 3 roles inside the same match.

Also O’Connell had over 2 years building up a fantastic relationship/ understanding with Stevens.
Also Basham had over 2 years building up a fantastic relationship/ understanding with Baldock.

So it was loosing O’Connell that massively effected that tactic and we also had Basham out for 2 or 3 months too.

Exactly this. The loss of JOC meant we could only overlap down the right so it became easier to defend against.

 

[Greasy Chap Butty]

None of the other clubs had fans in either. It doesn't make sense to pin it on that.
Our atmosphere may have helped us more than others, but it can't account for the huge drop-off that season.

 

[bladesince64]

JOC was such an outstanding player and he could do a triple positional role in the team set up

First, he won everything in the air that came into the box

Second, he would run forwards and tackle as soon as a ball was played into our half

3rd, he had ball skills that very few CBs of his stature possess.

He would definitely have got in the England squad at that time (pre- injury(

People talk about Ndiaye being our best player in recent times.

For me it's Jack O'Connell.

sess

 

[mattbianco1]

None of the other clubs had fans in either. It doesn't make sense to pin it on that.
Our atmosphere may have helped us more than others, but it can't account for the huge drop-off that season.

But without the fans it removed any advantage/edge we had.
We never had players good enough to control games from start to finish and control possession, but we had a game plan that worked. We also had an intimidating home crowd. The Man Utd and Arsenal home games that season being prime examples of how the crowd helped to rally our players and also cause opposition players to panic and make errors. It helped us.

Behind closed doors was basically a training exercise. The better technical players shone and had nobody in their ears trying to give the underdog the advantage.

There's a reason on the continent the whistle when the opposition team have the ball.

 

[Working Class Hero]

It wasn't just the atmosphere, which clearly was better than most teams had, it was also the connection. The ub was so united and that obviously helped the players on the pitch. That was gone during covid.

Maybe it's because I was at every game and I felt it, but I can't see how anyone can doubt that it was more of an advantage to us than other teams. Maybe only a very small percentage boost but those small margins are big in football.

 

[mattbianco1]

But without the fans it removed any advantage/edge we had.
We never had players good enough to control games from start to finish and control possession, but we had a game plan that worked. We also had an intimidating home crowd. The Man Utd and Arsenal home games that season being prime examples of how the crowd helped to rally our players and also cause opposition players to panic and make errors. It helped us.

Behind closed doors was basically a training exercise. The better technical players shone and had nobody in their ears trying to give the underdog the advantage.

There's a reason on the continent the whistle when the opposition team have the ball.

I will add to that, that it's not a one way thing. It's not just the fans. The players need to perform too and lift us out of our seats.

The whole club was together back then. They fought for us, they left everything they could out on the pitch.
We seem lacking in that department at the minute.

If the players showed that grit, determination and fight for 90mins now, the atmosphere would return.

It works both ways

 

[Sheffsteel]

And if u think anfield has one of the best atmospheres then ur a joke

You hear these types of comments quite a lot from Blades who say they go to Anfield and say the Liverpool fans were so quiet.
It's true based on what Blades witness however the reason is because their fans don't feel motivated when playing us, as it's one of their smallest matches of the season. It's like a Tranmere Rovers (the 3rd Merseyside club) fan saying every time they come to Bramall Lane the home crowd are unbelievably quiet. Anfield on a European night is consistently one of the better atmospheres in Europe.

None of the other clubs had fans in either. It doesn't make sense to pin it on that.
Our atmosphere may have helped us more than others, but it can't account for the huge drop-off that season.

See what you mean but crowd atmosphere is known the give players an extra 10% and also intimidate players putting them off of their game.
The Bramall Lane Kop is much closer to the pitch than at many other grounds, so we probably have a greater advantage than say West Ham.
Even Virgil Van Dyke (after the Liverpool match) acknowledged that Bramall Lane is a really difficult place to place because the crowd.
So it does make probably a 10% to 20% difference to performance, that 10% to 20% might or might not effect results.

You say there was a huge drop off, I kind of disagree, think it was small margins.

In the 1st season regards general play alot of matches were pretty even, we had a great defence, great goalie and managed to score the odd goal often winning 1-0. When ever the opposition scored a goal we often found ways to score 2.

Where as in the 2nd season regards general play alot of matches are also pretty even, our defence and goalie weren't as good but the big difference was we struggled to create chances and only scored 20 goals all season, meaning we tended to lose plenty of matches 0-1. On the rare occasion we managed to score a goal, the oppostion tended to find a way to score 2 goals.

Also there were players like Lundstram going through the motions playing like it was a training exercise because it was training exercise conditions.
With a crowd it's probably he'd have tried harder, even if was only sub consciously due to adrenaline rush and pressure.

Playing behind closed doors did have a detrimental effect on us, whether it would have kept us up, probably not, but who knows.

 

[SelbyBlade]

Under Wilder we were a unit full of cogs each cog was vital one of the cogs was the fans another was that each player fit into the patterns set up by Wilder / Knill. One of the biggest of the cogs was Jack O'Connell. The loss of JOC and the fans together meant we lost a defensive and attacking option (just going down the right continually) with the feeling of a training ground on match days. But despite that we very rarely got turned over and in fact we lost most games by a single goal. I think the first drubbing was against Leicester the day after Wilder left where Billy couldn't even look at the camera post match.
One Cog is back, the crowd were great against Man Utd but injuries are killing us so we can't get going. The tactics are weird in terms of taking off Hamer when we needed a goal and brought on Ozzy (against Manure) but the big disappointment has been the defense and the whole defensive unit of the team which we had the first season in the prem with Wilder and JOC.

 

[Blademan18891889]

What's this "atmosphere" people keep talking of at bramall lane, because I'm afraid lads and lasses it quite frankly doesn't exist no more, those days are long gone.

 

[Stegosaurus]

Hi Stegosaurus here

Fans only make a difference if they are loud. Our fans are only loud when winning.

Rest of the time it's just a buzz of 28,000 Yorkshiremen moaning as Norwood passes to their defender, Wes drops a cross or Anel misses a head.

 

[Greasy Chap Butty]

But without the fans it removed any advantage/edge we had.
We never had players good enough to control games from start to finish and control possession, but we had a game plan that worked. We also had an intimidating home crowd. The Man Utd and Arsenal home games that season being prime examples of how the crowd helped to rally our players and also cause opposition players to panic and make errors. It helped us.

Behind closed doors was basically a training exercise. The better technical players shone and had nobody in their ears trying to give the underdog the advantage.

There's a reason on the continent the whistle when the opposition team have the ball.

It did remove an advantage we had, but not a 9th to record bottom difference. I do get and agree to the effect our crowd has , also to what Sheffsteel has said, but that's a huge difference.

 

[Greasy Chap Butty]

.

 

[Torrix1889]

How shit?
Are we talking Championship shit, league 1 level shit or league 2 level shit?

Chesterfield are in the non league, theres no way they would lose 0-8 at home to Newcastle.
Also think Chesterfield would have the odd attack if they played away at Arsenal.

Average Championship squad at best IMO.

 

[Gavlar]

It's interesting that some think the fans not being there had a big impact on our relegation.

If that is the case, can the fans greatly affect our chances of staying up this year?

 

[Jacobsenthecrab]

It didn't stop Liverpool from winning their first Premier League title so that's always been a load of bollocks as far as I'm concerned. Anfield has one of the best match day atmospheres in football full stop. Why didn't it effect them?

We went down because we didn't score enough goals and recruited poorly for the second summer in a row. The season before we averaged a goal a game over the course of the season, but a solid defence and ability to retain possession delivered results despite this. The warning signs were there and that's why I predicted relegation after seeing the players that we brought in over the second summer. Greatest transfer window my arse!

Three poor transfer windows saw very few players come in who could challenge the Championship team who got us up. Every club strengthened their teams, we strengthend our squad, well added to our squad. You can't say that Lowe, Burke and Ampadu strengthened our squad. When the Championship team lost form there was no one good enough to replace them, hence why the Prince told Wilder he could stay on if we went down, but would have to work with a director or football who would sign players, not Wilder.

We also didn't have a Jack Grealish to sell for big money to fund our summer further. O'Connell was our best bet but he sadly got injured.

But yeah, no fans is why we went down. That's the real reason.

Lowe, Burke & Ampadu - one out of three ain’t bad (as a squad player)

 

[Fjortoft's Aeroplane]

Fans with belief and fans lacking belief are two very different things. Having just seen us finish 9th in the Prem and on the back of 4 terrific seasons our fans were raring to go for 20/21. The players don't just hear the chants from the crowd ,they can sense this belief and it gives them a huge lift.

After 2 attempted sales to dodgy charlatans, 1 transfer embargo and the sale of our 2 best players, combined with limited spending on quality this summer, have this belief has evaporated. And the players pick up on this too.

 

[Gimli]

It didn't stop Liverpool from winning their first Premier League title so that's always been a load of bollocks as far as I'm concerned. Anfield has one of the best match day atmospheres in football full stop. Why didn't it effect them?

We went down because we didn't score enough goals and recruited poorly for the second summer in a row. The season before we averaged a goal a game over the course of the season, but a solid defence and ability to retain possession delivered results despite this. The warning signs were there and that's why I predicted relegation after seeing the players that we brought in over the second summer. Greatest transfer window my arse!

Three poor transfer windows saw very few players come in who could challenge the Championship team who got us up. Every club strengthened their teams, we strengthend our squad, well added to our squad. You can't say that Lowe, Burke and Ampadu strengthened our squad. When the Championship team lost form there was no one good enough to replace them, hence why the Prince told Wilder he could stay on if we went down, but would have to work with a director or football who would sign players, not Wilder.

We also didn't have a Jack Grealish to sell for big money to fund our summer further. O'Connell was our best bet but he sadly got injured.

But yeah, no fans is why we went down. That's the real reason.

It did affect Liverpool - when the covid break happened they’d lost one and drawn one of their 29 games, winning the rest.

They drew 2 and lost 2 of their remaining 9 once the season resumed again.

The season after (the true covid season where we were relegated) they finished a distant 3rd with 69 points.

 

[ancientblade]

Average Championship squad at best IMO.

i think we would have a top 6 championship squad when everybody is fit again big big gap these days between premier league and championship teams we were never going to survive this season on the pittance weve spent on new players

 

[Torrix1889]

i think we would have a top 6 championship squad when everybody is fit again big big gap these days between premier league and championship teams we were never going to survive this season on the pittance weve spent on new players

True but big fees don't always equal success obviously.

I would challenge our scouts and recruitment team however as you can unearth gems if you look hard enough, (remember Marhez & Kante, the cost combined about the same as Beni Traore)......it was quite obvious that all of our signings were a "gamble" and so far, they are mostly falling woefully short. With time I think Souza could be a beast in midfield and I do like Hamer and Trusty but the rest have been, on the whole, shite....add in the injuries and we are significantly weaker still than the squad that got promoted...

 

[Ndiayewillalwaysloveyou]

Excellent support throughout today. Helped with the players giving a fuck though!

 

[Gavlar]

Fans fault again today presumably.

 

[JJBlade]

Yes, Covid cost us our Premier league status, you don't go from chasing Europe to relegation without due cause.

Why not ?
We've done it before and there was no Covid then