Even allowing for the propensity of us Blades to be contrary from time to time, it's difficult to understand how anybody can maintain that playing matches in training pitch conditions hasn't negatively impacted us more than it has any other club in the division.
Moreover, it's not as if it wasn't completely predictable. I was gutted when it was announced that football would resume last June. I recall telling a mate who is an Arsenal fan, before the games even resumed, that playing behind closed doors would kill us and that our brilliant season would just fizzle out.
Even allowing for everything else that has befallen us this season, there is still absolutely no way that 11 teams (and counting) would have come to the Lane and helped themselves to the points. And, it's not just about the extra impetus that our players get from the crowd. Even the top players in the better opposition sides are affected mentally when they step out into the bearpit that the Lane can be. They are less confident, less comfortable and less 'on the front-foot'.
And it is lazy to say that it is the same for everyone. The relative or perceived status of each club in any given fixture is a big factor in how a crowd behaves. Thus, last season our crowd knew that we were the underdogs in literally every match and were, consequently, four-square behind the team home and away.
The corollary of that underdog status was that, on our travels, every opponent we faced was playing in front of a home crowd who expected to beat us and that, therefore, created additional pressure on the home sides. The longer we could stay in games, the more pressure and tension seeped into the home sides.
It was no accident that, up until lockdown, only Liverpool and Man City - the 2 sides with such a gulf in quality as to override the crowd effect - had managed to beat us in our away games. It was in many respects the same effect that we ourselves actually suffer from ourselves when we are in the lower divisions; just think of the pressure and tensions that transmits from the stands when we're struggling against unfashionable visitors in the Championship or League 1.
Training ground football swept away that double crowd advantage that we benefitted from.
Some other clubs will have suffered in one way or another, of course - for instance, Liverpool and Leeds will say that they lost the effect of their home crowds - but many have been neutral or even benefitted - for instance, West Ham and Man U who have impatient crowds that are quiet save when they're being critical have noticeably been relieved of pressure in their play - from playing in sterile conditions.
